otari vs router
LLM gateways and model routing compared
otari and router provide a shared endpoint for sending AI requests to multiple providers. otari emphasizes access controls, budgets, and usage tracking in a self-hosted gateway, while router focuses on scoring requests across models and supporting several API formats.
otari: Run an OpenAI-Compatible LLM Gateway
Otari is Mozilla AI’s self-hostable LLM gateway, using any-llm to route OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible requests to providers through one endpoint. It adds virtual keys, budgets, routing policies, and usage tracking for teams operating their own AI stack.
router: Route Agent Prompts with Avengers-Pro Scoring
Weave Router is a Go proxy for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other clients, routing each request across model providers. Its in-process cluster scorer, derived from the Avengers-Pro research, uses an on-box embedder to choose a model per action.
| otari | router | |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Python | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Stars | 660 | 5.6k |
| Forks | 83 | 159 |
| Last analyzed | Oct 19, 2026 | Oct 20, 2026 |
Key differences
- otari is written in Python and router in Go.
- otari offers virtual keys scoped to users, workspaces, or models, plus budget checks and usage records; router offers BYOK with provider keys encrypted at rest.
- otari supports OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible endpoints and integration with 40+ providers; router accepts Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini formats and connects to OpenRouter and other OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
- otari provides routing policies for failover, weighting, and learned selection; router uses an in-process cluster scorer and includes an endpoint for inspecting a routing decision without an upstream call.
- Both can be self-hosted. otari can run with its own database or connect a data plane to otari.ai; router also has a hosted setup, and its full self-hosted stack requires setup including Postgres.
- Both use Apache-2.0 for the described release line, and router has substantially more stars and forks than otari in the supplied figures.
Choose otari if you…
- need scoped virtual keys, budget controls, or usage tracking for teams.
- want routing policies such as failover or weighted selection across providers.
- prefer a self-hosted gateway with OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible endpoints.
Choose router if you…
- need support for Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini request formats.
- want to inspect routing decisions or export traces through OTLP.
- build agent or coding-tool workflows and want a shared endpoint for configured models.
Compare the numbers side by side, or add more projects
This comparison is generated with AI from the OSRepos analyses of both projects. Always check each project's repository and documentation before choosing.