Install OmniRoute in Under 2 Minutes
One command. 231+ AI providers behind a single endpoint on localhost:20128.
$ npm i -g omnirouteThen point your coding tools at:
Base URL: http://localhost:20128/v1OmniRoute is open source (MIT). Also available as Electron desktop app, ARM64 build, Termux, and PWA.
Managing Multiple AI Providers Is a Nightmare
Rate limits kill your flow mid-session. Subscription quotas expire while tokens go unused elsewhere. Each coding tool demands its own API key setup. OmniRoute eliminates this chaos — one local gateway handles routing, compression, and failover across every provider automatically.
Install OmniRoute via npm, Docker, or the Electron desktop app in under 2 minutes
Point your coding tools — Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot — at localhost:20128
OmniRoute handles provider routing, fallback, and token compression behind the scenes
What Exactly Is OmniRoute?
OmniRoute is a local-first AI gateway that sits between your development tools and AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and DeepSeek. Instead of configuring separate API keys and managing rate limits for each tool, you point everything at a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint on your machine. The gateway intelligently routes requests using 17 different strategies — from cost-optimized to quality-first — while compressing tokens and handling provider outages automatically.
How Does OmniRoute's Smart Routing Work?
When a request arrives, OmniRoute scores available providers across six factors: latency, cost, quota headroom, error rate, model capability, and task type. Its Auto-Combo engine chains providers into fallback tiers — subscription accounts first, then API keys, then cheap alternatives, then free tiers. If the primary provider fails or hits a rate limit, the gateway switches to the next tier in milliseconds without dropping the request. RTK and Caveman compression reduce token usage by 15 to 95 percent before the request even leaves your machine.
Why Developers Choose OmniRoute Over Manual Setup
Never Hit a Rate Limit Wall Again
- 4-tier automatic fallback routing
- Subscription quota maximization
- 50+ free-tier provider aggregation
- Round-robin multi-account support
- Real-time provider health scoring
- Circuit breaker protection
- Exponential backoff with jitter
- Anti-thundering-herd safeguards
- Request idempotency guarantees
- Millisecond provider switching
Slash Token Costs Without Changing Your Workflow
- RTK plus Caveman stacked compression
- 15 to 95 percent token reduction
- Automatic tool output compression
- Semantic caching for repeat queries
- Cost-per-token tracking dashboard
- Provider cost comparison analytics
- Per-model usage breakdown
Who Uses OmniRoute in Their Daily Workflow?
Solo developers use OmniRoute to stretch free tiers across providers and avoid subscription lock-in. Engineering teams deploy it as a shared inference gateway with centralized cost tracking. AI startups integrate the gateway to abstract provider dependencies from their product code. Anyone who works with multiple LLM providers benefits from unified routing and observability.
- Solo developers maximizing free tiers
- Engineering teams needing shared routing
- AI startups abstracting provider lock-in
- Open-source contributors on tight budgets
- Researchers comparing model outputs
- DevOps teams managing API infrastructure
- Freelancers juggling client projects
- Educators teaching AI development
Open Source, MIT Licensed, Community Driven
OmniRoute is fully open source under the MIT license with over 9,800 stars on GitHub. Originally forked from 9router and inspired by CLIProxyAPI, the project has grown into a comprehensive gateway with contributions from hundreds of developers. It runs entirely on your machine — no prompts pass through third-party cloud routers. Your data stays local, your routing stays private.
- MIT license — free forever
- 9,800+ GitHub stars
- Local-first architecture
- No third-party cloud routing
- Active contributor community
- Transparent provider scoring
- Self-hostable on any platform
Stop Juggling API Keys — Start Routing Smarter
OmniRoute turns the multi-provider mess into a single endpoint that just works. Install it in two minutes, point your tools at localhost, and let the gateway handle the rest. Smart routing, token compression, and automatic fallback — all running locally on your machine.
OmniRoute — Frequently Asked Questions
Everything You Need to Know About the AI Gateway
- OmniRoute is an open-source AI gateway that unifies access to 231+ AI providers through a single, OpenAI-compatible API endpoint. It sits locally on your machine between your coding tools and the providers, handling request routing, format translation, token compression, and automatic failover. Think of the gateway as a smart traffic controller that ensures your AI-powered development tools never stop working, regardless of which provider hits a rate limit or goes down.
- OmniRoute differentiates itself in three key areas. First, it offers RTK plus Caveman stacked token compression that saves 15 to 95 percent on eligible requests — neither LiteLLM nor OpenRouter compress tokens at all. Second, it includes a built-in MCP server with 95 tools and an A2A protocol server, whereas competitors are limited to client-side integrations. Third, the gateway supports 17 routing strategies compared to LiteLLM's retry/priority approach and OpenRouter's single-model selection. The tradeoff: LiteLLM has a larger Python ecosystem, and OpenRouter handles billing centrally.
- The gateway supports 231+ providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, Mistral, Cohere, Together AI, Groq, Fireworks, and dozens more. Over 50 of these providers offer free tiers that OmniRoute can aggregate — roughly 1.6 billion free tokens per month combined. The gateway translates request formats automatically, so you can access Claude, GPT, Gemini, and open-source models through the same endpoint without changing a single line of code.
- OmniRoute runs anywhere Node.js does. The fastest path is npm: run 'npm install -g omniroute' and the gateway starts on port 20128. Docker users can pull the official image. Desktop users get an Electron app for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It even runs on a Raspberry Pi via ARM64 support or on an Android phone through Termux. Setup takes under two minutes regardless of which method you choose.
- Any tool that speaks the OpenAI API format works out of the box. Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Cline, Codex, KiloCode, Kiro, and Qwen Code all connect by pointing their base URL at localhost:20128. The gateway handles format translation between provider APIs internally, so your tools don't need to know which backend model is actually serving the request. Configuration is one line: set the base URL and optionally an API key from the dashboard.
- OmniRoute was created by diegosouzapw and is an active open-source project with over 9,800 GitHub stars. It started as a fork of 9router and a TypeScript port of CLIProxyAPI, then grew into a full-featured gateway with contributions from hundreds of developers. New releases ship regularly — the project reached version 3.8 with features like stacked compression, MCP server integration, and A2A protocol support. The MIT license means anyone can use, modify, and distribute it freely.
- OmniRoute runs entirely on your local machine — no requests pass through any third-party cloud router. Your API keys are stored in a local SQLite database, and all provider communication happens directly from your machine to the provider's API. The gateway includes guardrails for PII detection and prompt injection prevention, plus TLS fingerprint stealth for users in regions where AI services face restrictions. Your prompts, keys, and routing data never leave your control.
- The gateway shines when you rely on multiple AI providers simultaneously. If you code with Claude Code but hit Anthropic's rate limit, OmniRoute silently falls back to another provider. If you want to use expensive models for complex tasks and cheap ones for simple queries, task-aware routing handles that automatically. Teams use it for centralized cost tracking across all AI spending. Solo developers use it to aggregate free tiers and stretch their budget. Anyone tired of managing separate API configurations for each tool benefits immediately.
- The gateway adds minimal overhead — typically under 10 milliseconds per request. Since OmniRoute runs locally on your machine, there's no network hop to a cloud proxy. The latency you save by compressing tokens often exceeds the routing overhead, resulting in faster end-to-end response times compared to direct API calls. Semantic caching further reduces latency for repeated or similar queries by serving cached responses instantly.
- Yes, the OmniRoute dashboard supports 42 locales for its management interface. The gateway itself is language-agnostic — it routes requests regardless of the natural language content. Whether your prompts are in English, Chinese, Japanese, or any other language, the routing, compression, and fallback logic works identically. The dashboard provides analytics, provider management, and configuration in your preferred language.
- Yes, OmniRoute is completely free and open source under the MIT license. There is no paid tier, no premium features behind a paywall, and no usage limits imposed by the gateway itself. You bring your own API keys from providers, and OmniRoute handles the routing. The project is community-driven and funded through open-source contributions. You can self-host it, modify the source code, and deploy it however you want — forever.