OpenRouter vs Hugging Face Inference Providers: free tiers compared

Both columns come from each provider’s own pages, with the day each line was read. Where a page does not state a value, the cell says so.

OpenRouter and Hugging Face Inference Providers free tiers side by side
Line	OpenRouterFree tier	Hugging Face Inference ProvidersFree tier
Free allowance	20 req/min · 50 req/day 1,000 req/day once the account has bought at least 10 credits. 3 Oct	$0.10 of credits/month Listed as “subject to change”. Past it, usage needs purchased credits. 3 Oct
Requests / min	20 All free model variants together. 3 Oct	Not published The allowance is a monthly credit, not a request count. 3 Oct
Requests / day	50 1,000/day once the account has bought at least 10 credits. 3 Oct	Not published The allowance is a monthly credit, not a request count. 3 Oct
Tokens / min	Not published The limits page counts requests, not tokens. 3 Oct	Not published The allowance is a monthly credit, not a token count. 3 Oct
Tokens / day	Not published The limits page counts requests, not tokens. 3 Oct	Not published The allowance is a monthly credit, not a token count. 3 Oct
Card to start	Not required The 50 req/day ceiling applies to accounts that bought fewer than 10 credits, so no purchase is needed. 3 Oct	Not verified
Trains on your data	Your setting An account setting decides whether requests may be routed to providers that train on your data, with a separate switch for free models. 3 Oct	Not verified Depends on the provider the request is routed to.
Commercial use	Not verified	Not verified
OpenAI SDK	Yes 3 Oct	Yes The docs use the OpenAI client against the router URL. 3 Oct
Image input	Yes Several free variants list image input; see the free model list. 3 Oct	Not verified

17 of 24 cells above were read on the provider’s own page in the last 30 days (oldest check: 3 Oct 2026). Each check mark opens that page. The other 7 say “not verified” instead of repeating a number from someone else’s article.

Where they differ

OpenRouter publishes its requests per minute (20); Hugging Face Inference Providers does not publish that figure.
OpenRouter publishes its requests per day (50); Hugging Face Inference Providers does not publish that figure.
Image input is confirmed on OpenRouter and not confirmed on Hugging Face Inference Providers.

Only differences confirmed on both sides are listed. We do not rank speed or output quality: this site does not measure them.

Same code for both

Both expose an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Choose either provider below and compare the three values that change.

base_url: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
model: openrouter/free
key from: $OPENROUTER_API_KEY

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["OPENROUTER_API_KEY"],
)

reply = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="openrouter/free",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Reply with the word: ok"}],
)
print(reply.choices[0].message.content)

Endpoint read on 3 Oct 2026· openrouter.ai

The key is read from an environment variable on your machine. This site has no field for keys and never asks for one.

Other comparisons

Questions and answers

Which has the higher free limit, OpenRouter or Hugging Face Inference Providers?

OpenRouter: 20 req/min · 50 req/day. Hugging Face Inference Providers: $0.10 of credits/month. The units differ between providers, so compare them against your own traffic.

Do OpenRouter and Hugging Face Inference Providers need a credit card?

OpenRouter: not required. Hugging Face Inference Providers: not verified on an official page.

Which one trains on my prompts?

OpenRouter: your setting. Hugging Face Inference Providers: not verified on an official page.

Can I use both with the same code?

Yes. Both expose an OpenAI-compatible endpoint: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 and https://router.huggingface.co/v1. Only the base URL, the model name and the key change.