Ditch Slow Free AI APIs — 14,400 Requests/Day at 500 Tokens/Sec
Ditch Slow Free AI APIs — 14,400 Requests/Day at 500 Tokens/SecAn API key lets you plug AI into your own apps, bots, scripts, or tools — no ChatGPT subscription, no monthly fee. And the best free ones are 20x faster than what you’ve been using.
OpenRouter’s free tier is broken by design. Slow speeds, dropped requests, provider-side throttling during peak hours, and failed attempts still count against your 50/day quota. You’re not imagining it — you’re being funneled toward the checkout page.
So stop fighting it. Here’s where to go instead.
⚡ Why OpenRouter Free Is Broken — The Numbers
Free users sit at the back of the line. Paying customers get routed first. Your request queues, times out, or just vanishes.
| Provider (all free) | First Token | Speed | What It Feels Like |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek R1 on OpenRouter | ~850ms | ~40 tok/s | Painful. Drops constantly. |
| Llama 3.3 70B on Groq | ~100ms | 300+ tok/s | Faster than ChatGPT |
| Llama 3.1 8B on Groq | ~50ms | 500+ tok/s | Like typing into Google |
| Llama 3.1 70B on Cerebras | ~80ms | 450+ tok/s | Blink and it’s done |
20x speed difference. Same quality tier. Same price (zero). Different hardware.
OpenRouter runs on shared GPU pools — everyone fights for the same cards. Groq built custom LPU chips designed specifically for AI inference. Cerebras uses wafer-scale chips at full 16-bit precision. Different silicon, different universe.
🥇 Groq — Your New Primary (The Speed King)
Custom LPU hardware. Nothing touches it on speed. No card. No trial. No expiry. Just sign up and go.
| Model | Requests/Day | Tokens/Day | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.1 8B Instant | 14,400 | 500K | Quick tasks, high volume |
| Llama 3.3 70B Versatile | 1,000 | 100K | Daily driver, coding |
| Llama 4 Scout 17B | 1,000 | 500K | Strong reasoning |
| Llama 4 Maverick 17B | 1,000 | 500K | Creative + reasoning |
| Qwen3-32B | 1,000 | 500K | Multilingual |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill 70B | 1,000 | 100K | o1-class reasoning |
Also free: web search, code execution, Whisper speech-to-text, text-to-speech. Cached tokens don’t count against limits. They explicitly don’t train on your data. Ever.
Sign up · Rate limits · Models
🥈 Cerebras — Your Backup (The Token Monster)
Wafer-scale chips. Up to 2,600 tokens/second. Full 16-bit precision — no quantization shortcuts.
| What You Get | Free Tier |
|---|---|
| Daily tokens | 1,000,000 |
| Speed | Up to 2,600 tok/s |
| Context window | 8,192 tokens (free) · up to 128K (paid) |
| Models | Llama 4 Scout, Qwen 3 235B, gpt-oss-120B, Llama 3.1 8B |
Best for bulk processing when Groq’s token cap feels tight. Free tier context is only 8K — fine for chat, tight for long docs. Some models (Llama 3.3 70B, Qwen 3 32B) are being deprecated mid-Feb 2026 — check their list before building around one.
🔧 Setup — Zero to Working API in 5 Minutes
What’s an API key? A password that lets your app talk to an AI model directly. You get one for free, paste it into your code or tool, and you’re running AI without paying anyone a subscription.
Groq (Do This First)
- Go to console.groq.com
- Sign up (email or Google/GitHub — no card)
- API Keys → Create API Key → copy it → save somewhere safe
Paste this in your terminal to test:
curl https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_GROQ_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "llama-3.3-70b-versatile",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in one sentence"}]
}'
Response in under 1 second? That’s LPU speed. You just left OpenRouter behind.
Cerebras (Your Backup)
- cloud.cerebras.ai → sign up (no card) → generate API key
curl https://api.cerebras.ai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_CEREBRAS_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "llama3.1-8b",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in one sentence"}]
}'
🔀 One Gateway, Auto-Failover (LiteLLM)
Don’t manually switch between providers. Let LiteLLM try Groq first, fall back to Cerebras automatically.
pip install litellm
Save as litellm_config.yaml:
model_list:
- model_name: fast-chat
litellm_params:
model: groq/llama-3.3-70b-versatile
api_key: YOUR_GROQ_KEY
model_info:
priority: 1
- model_name: fast-chat
litellm_params:
model: cerebras/llama3.1-8b
api_key: YOUR_CEREBRAS_KEY
model_info:
priority: 2
router_settings:
routing_strategy: "priority-based"
num_retries: 2
timeout: 30
litellm --config litellm_config.yaml
Your app hits http://localhost:4000/v1/chat/completions — LiteLLM handles the rest. Groq down? Cerebras catches it. Both use the same OpenAI-compatible format. Switching providers = changing two lines.
🧠 Match Model to Task — Stop Overthinking
Using a 70B model for “what’s 2+2” is like renting a bulldozer to plant a flower.
| Task | Use This | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Q&A, chat | Llama 3.1 8B on Groq | 14,400 req/day, instant |
| Reasoning, math | DeepSeek R1 Distill 70B on Groq | o1-class thinking, actually fast |
| Long docs, analysis | Qwen 3 235B on Cerebras | 1M tok/day |
| Coding | Llama 3.3 70B on Groq | Fast + accurate |
| Creative writing | Llama 4 Maverick on Groq | Stronger creative output |
| Multilingual | Qwen3-32B on Groq | Built for it |
| Bulk processing | Any model on Cerebras | Raw token throughput |
💡 Free Tricks to Stretch Your Limits Further
Semantic Caching — ~31% of queries overlap with previous ones. Cache them. GPTCache cuts API calls by 60%+ while keeping 97% accuracy.
Prompt Caching on Groq — Same system prompt + different user messages? Groq caches the prefix automatically. Cached tokens don’t count against limits. Free speedup, zero setup.
Prompt Compression — LLMLingua-2 compresses prompts up to 20x. Runs on a tiny BERT-sized model. Fewer tokens in = more room under your free cap.
🌍 More Free Providers Worth Knowing
| Provider | Free Offer | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| SambaNova | $5 credit (30-day expiry) | Only provider with Llama 405B |
| Cloudflare Workers AI | 10K neurons/day | Edge inference, no signup needed |
| Mistral | 1B tokens/month | EU/GDPR compliant (French) |
| Hyperbolic | $1 credit (phone verify) | 400+ tok/s, aggressive pricing |
| Cohere | 1,000 calls/month | Embeddings, RAG pipelines |
| Fireworks AI | $1 credit | 100+ models, batch inference |
EU developers: Google Gemini’s free tier doesn’t work for EEA/UK/Switzerland users. Use Mistral, Scaleway (Paris), or OVH (Gravelines, France).
🧰 Beyond Chat — Free APIs for Everything Else
| Category | Top Free Pick | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Embeddings | Voyage AI | 200M free tokens · top MTEB scores |
| Embeddings (self-host) | Nomic | Run free via ollama pull nomic-embed-text |
| Image Generation | Pollinations.ai | Unlimited, no signup · FLUX, Seedream models |
| Image Gen (quality) | Stability AI | SD3/SDXL free under $1M revenue |
| Speech-to-Text | Deepgram | $200 free credits · ~430 hours · no card |
| Text-to-Speech | ElevenLabs | 20K credits/month · voice cloning |
| Code Completion | Supermaven | Unlimited autocomplete · fastest in class |
| Translation | Microsoft Translator | 2M chars/month free |
| Fine-Tuning | Google Colab | Free T4 GPU · QLoRA 7B-8B models |
| AI Gateway | Portkey | 10K req/mo · 50+ guardrails · OSS |
⚠️ Things That Don't Work
| “Solution” | Reality |
|---|---|
| OpenRouter free tier | 50 req/day, slow, drops requests, failed calls still counted. Broken by design. |
| Puter.js | “Free unlimited OpenRouter” — credits exhaust fast, constant “no fallback” errors. |
| Multiple OpenRouter accounts | Tracked by identity, not API key. Against ToS. Won’t help. |
| Google AI Studio (heavy use) | Slashed 50-80% in Dec 2025. Flash: 20 req/day. Not enough. |
| Self-hosting on free cloud | AWS/GCP/Azure free = 1GB RAM. Exception: Oracle Cloud (24GB ARM, free forever). |
📊 The Full Ranking
| Provider | Free Limit | Speed | Cost | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groq (8B) | 14,400 req/day |  |
$0 | High volume, instant |
| Groq (70B) | 1,000 req/day | |
$0 | Daily driver |
| Cerebras | 1M tokens/day | |
$0 | Bulk processing |
| SambaNova | 40 req/model/day | |
$5 credit | 405B model access |
| Mistral | 1B tokens/month | |
$0 | EU/GDPR |
| Self-host (Oracle) | Unlimited | |
$0 | Privacy, offline |
📚 Resources
| Resource | What It Is |
|---|---|
| free-llm-api-resources | 6.6K stars — exact rate limits for every free provider |
| cool-ai-stuff | Tiered API directory with model availability |
| LiteLLM | Multi-provider gateway, auto-failover |
| GPTCache | Semantic caching — cut calls 60%+ |
| LLMLingua | Prompt compression — 20x fewer tokens |
Your new stack:
- Groq — primary. 90% of your requests.
- Cerebras — backup. When you need raw token volume.
- LiteLLM — glues them together. Automatic failover, zero code changes.
OpenRouter was never the answer. It was the bottleneck. Now you know where the door is.
!