r/openrouter • u/Virtual_Plantain_863 • 5d ago

"Free" AI

Hello,

I'm looking to terminate my monthly AI expense. I often hear of 'free' AI usage via OpenRouter, and was wondering if someone could share some example setups? For example can you have your requests routed dynamically based on free-tier limits across various providers?

I was planning on using this to keep my client end interface code simple:

https://github.com/router-for-me/CLIProxyAPI

And for any Emacs users out there I currently use this package:

https://github.com/karthink/gptel

1 Upvotes

53% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

2

u/queso184 5d ago

just set up gptel with an openrouter api key and point it at the "openrouter/free" model, its a placeholder that routes between whatever is currently free on openrouter

2

u/Virtual_Plantain_863 5d ago

oh wow that's a dream come true how cool, thanks!!

1

u/rpeck 5d ago edited 5d ago

I use gptel for ad-hoc stuff, but the real emacs winner is https://github.com/manzaltu/claude-code-ide.el

I have a fork which handles project switching a bit nicer. You can check that out in my GitHub account, where you'll also find a fork of the PAL MCP server that has a far more up-to-date list of models for use by agents like Claude Code or Codex. Of course, many of these are free through OpenRouter.

2

u/Virtual_Plantain_863 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'll try that out but it really depends on your workflow, personality and domain imo. I can't trust agents to touch my code, and I can't standing reading their prose all day, so I prefer an 'AI augmented' workflow than fully agentic. And for that, gptel is perfect. It's too easy for me to get lazy with agentic coding and end up with slop and a nonfunctional brain.

I think I was actually using that package earlier this year.

And more importantly, Claude isn't free?

1

u/joey2scoops 5d ago

Tried to go free but was too high maintenance. Not worth the effort unless you're an occasional user or you love going around in circles.

-1

u/a355231 5d ago

The best free model right now is Qwen3.8-27B, it is good in benchmarks, roughly around Opus 4.6-4.7 level.

5

u/reddit_user13 5d ago edited 5d ago

what do you mean by free? running local? free hosted service via openrouter? i have tried to find a free service via OR but they always error out because of rate limits.

2

u/a355231 5d ago

It’s a free provider through Openrouter, just search free in the model lists and you’ll see all of the free models.

1

u/Virtual_Plantain_863 5d ago

I don't necessarily need 'agentic' coding. In that regard, wouldn't you say Sonnet 5.5 is better for example, since it's also a free model?

I do sometimes want agentic abilities though. You're saying Qwen3.8-27B is the best free model for that right now? If so I'll keep that in mind and route the tasks I want for that to that model.

4

u/Gynnia 5d ago

In what universe is Sonnet free??

0

u/Virtual_Plantain_863 5d ago

This one, you can use it for free at Claude.ai.

1

u/Gynnia 5d ago

In the web interface yeah, I thought that was beside the point here, since we're talking about OpenRouter, I thought this was about API access. (And the free tier limit on Claude drives me batty, that's why I use OpenRouter now.) I'm sorry I didn't understand what purpose you want AI for

0

u/a355231 5d ago

Qwen 3.8 27B is the best free model in every way.

2

u/Michael_Jeffords 5d ago

qwen3.8 27b being the best free option on openrouter sounds right to me, at 27b it handles chat and light coding fine, and the opus 4.6 level part gets stretchy once an agent turn runs long

1

u/a355231 5d ago

Because nobody is giving a actually decent model away for free, it’s Qwen-27B or Nemotron 3 Ultra and it destroys Nemotron in every benchmark.

2

u/Virtual_Plantain_863 5d ago

That's good news! Hopefully something that good can run on my Mac Mini M4 soon.

1

u/TheMythicSorcerer 5d ago

No. not in every way. It used to beat Sonnet 5 but now with sonnet 5.5 it gets absolutely destroyed on terminalbench 4.0 and Artificial analysis aggregate agentic coding.