Startup Alternatives

AI / LLM APIs10 alternativesPaid · Pay per token

Alternatives to OpenAI API

OpenAI's API is the default for most LLM-powered products. Indie / smaller alternatives offer different model families, lower prices, or unified routing.

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Pricing

Pay per token

Paid

Top indie alternatives

Smaller, founder-led tools that quietly compete with OpenAI API.

Anthropic API

Claude models via API.

Anthropic's Claude — strong reasoning + long context.

Pay per token

OpenRouter

Unified API for any LLM.

Indie infra — query Claude, GPT, Llama and 200+ models from one API.

Pay per token, ~5% marginBootstrapped

Mistral

European frontier LLMs.

Smaller-than-OpenAI lab with open + commercial models.

Pay per token / open weights free

Together AI

Open + closed model inference.

Indie-feeling inference for OSS models — fast and cheap.

Pay per token

Replicate

Run open-source AI models with an API.

YC indie team, run any model with one HTTP call.

Pay per inference

Groq

Ultra-fast LLM inference.

Smaller lab focused on inference speed.

Pay per token

Cerebras Inference

Fast inference on custom hardware.

AI hardware company offering insanely fast API.

Fireworks AI

Fast inference for OSS models.

Indie team, OSS model inference.

DeepInfra

Cheap inference for OSS models.

Smaller player undercutting Together on price.

Hugging Face Inference

Run any model from the Hub.

Indie-friendly inference on top of HF Hub.

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