Open-source AI infrastructure
Compare Everstack and OpenRouter on deployment model, credit and BYOK fees, provider breadth, and what happens to prompts and responses in transit.
OpenRouter states it passes underlying provider pricing through without markup, which is a fair commercial model and worth crediting. Its model catalogue behind a single key is the widest available and nothing self-hosted will match it. If your workflow is trying new models as they land, use OpenRouter.
Credit purchases carry 5.5% with a $0.80 minimum via Stripe, or 5% via crypto. Bringing your own provider keys is free up to $25,000 of monthly list price on pay-as-you-go and $200,000 on enterprise, then costs 5% of standard OpenRouter pricing for that model and provider. The allowance is generous and most teams never reach it. Figures August 2026.
OpenRouter's documentation describes no self-hosting or open source option, so prompts and responses pass through their infrastructure. For teams whose customers ask where inference data is processed, that is the whole question. For everyone else it is a non-issue and the hosted option is far less work.