OpenRouter vs Vigil
Not a replacement: Vigil sits in front of OpenRouter and forwards to it, the way it forwards to any other provider. This page says what each one does, from OpenRouter's own pages read on 2026-10-09 and from Vigil's code, so you can see what routing OpenRouter calls through Vigil adds and what it does not.
What OpenRouter is, and what Vigil is
OpenRouter, in its own words: “A unified API for every major LLM. One endpoint, hundreds of models.”openrouter.ai. Gateway: the OpenAI SDK with base_url https://openrouter.ai/api/v1, "a drop-in replacement".
Vigil is a proxy for AI API calls. Change one base URL, add one header, and every call is logged with its cost, tokens, latency, errors and agent, then forwarded unchanged. Where the provider supports explicit prompt caching, Vigil can place the cache markers itself when optimisation is switched on. It stores no prompt text and caches no responses.
- OpenRouter says: "We pass through the pricing of the underlying model providers without any markup."openrouter.ai
- OpenRouter says: it does not store prompts or responses by default, and stores metadata such as token counts and latency.openrouter.ai
Feature by feature
The OpenRouter column was read on OpenRouter's own pages on 2026-10-09; each cell links to the page. “Not stated” means the pages read do not mention it, which is not the same as “no”. The Vigil column is read from Vigil's code and docs.
| Feature | OpenRouter | Vigil |
|---|---|---|
| Integration | OpenAI SDK pointed at openrouter.ai/api/v1.openrouter.ai | Proxy. Change the base URL and add the X-Vigil-Key header; no SDK. |
| Open source | The service is closed; SDKs are Apache-2.0.github.com | No. Vigil is not open source. |
| Hosting | Cloud only, with eu.openrouter.ai and us.openrouter.ai regional hosts on Business and Enterprise.openrouter.ai | Cloud only: a Cloudflare Worker in front of the provider, a dashboard on Vercel, data in Supabase (Frankfurt, EU). |
| Cost per call | "cost tracking across providers"; a cache_discount field and a generation endpoint per request.openrouter.ai | Yes: cost, tokens, latency, status and agent on every call, from a rate registry where every rate carries its source, date and provenance; a dash where no rate is published. |
| Providers | "Unified access to 500+ AI models" and "50+ cloud providers"; the public models API listed 458 models on the day read.openrouter.ai | 17 providers routed by segment. |
| Prompt caching | "Most providers automatically enable prompt caching"; on Anthropic, a top-level cache_control option for automatic breakpoints or per-block markers you place.openrouter.ai | Creates cache hits: Anthropic, Google Vertex, Mistral get cache markers placed by Vigil when optimisation is on; AWS Bedrock when the request carries an API key rather than a SigV4 signature. On other providers Vigil records the provider’s own caching. |
| Response caching | Not stated on the pages read. | No. Vigil does not cache responses. |
| Routing and fallbacks | "load balance requests across providers, prioritizing price"; fallbacks on by default; an Auto Router picks a model for the prompt.openrouter.ai | Model routing is in beta: Sends a conversation to a cheaper model from the same provider — one tier down — when its opening's size and tools are in a band the agent's routing level covers and the cheaper model can take the request; every call of the conversation gets the same answer. No provider fallbacks or load balancing. |
| Prompt management | Not stated on the pages read. | No prompt management or versioning. |
| Evals | Not stated on the pages read. | No evaluations. A score can be sent for a call through the feedback endpoint. |
| Tracing | Broadcast sends traces to 21 external platforms including Langfuse, LangSmith and Datadog.openrouter.ai | One record per call. No spans or traces. |
| Alerts | Budget, key-spend and new-model alerts by email, Slack and webhook.openrouter.ai | Cost spikes, failures and findings are flagged in the dashboard. Nothing is sent by email, Slack or push. |
| Prompt injection and PII | Guardrails: regex-based prompt-injection detection; "Detect and redact or block sensitive information (PII)".openrouter.ai | Flags likely prompt injections and personal data in prompts, on every plan. Nothing is blocked or redacted. |
| Budgets and rate limits | Spending caps in USD per day, week or month; model allowlists; per-key credit limits.openrouter.ai | No spend caps or rate limits on your provider traffic. Optimisation can be switched off per agent. |
| Seats | Workspaces: 5, 5, 1,000 or custom by plan; SSO and SAML on Enterprise.openrouter.ai | Seats per plan: 1 on Free, 3 on Plus, unlimited from Pro. Teammates are invited; there are no role tiers. |
| Compliance | "A single GDPR-compatible, SOC 2 compliant partner with SLAs."openrouter.ai | No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 report. A DPA is published. |
| Data residency | In-region routing on Business and Enterprise; a zero-data-retention policy unless you opt in to prompt logging.openrouter.ai | Account and telemetry stored in the EU (Supabase, Frankfurt). The proxy runs on Cloudflare’s edge. No prompt text or responses are stored. |
Where OpenRouter is stronger
- One key for hundreds of models across many providers, with load balancing and fallbacks.
- Provider prices without markup, a free tier of models, and bring-your-own-key.
- Spending caps, model allowlists and guardrails that redact or block.
- EU or US in-region routing and a zero-data-retention default.
Where Vigil differs
- It creates prompt-cache hits rather than reporting them, on the providers whose caching lets a proxy place markers, and measures what caching would have saved on the others.
- Every rate it prices with carries its source, its retrieval date and a provenance label, and a cost it cannot stand behind is a dash, not a number.
- Monitoring is not gated by plan: every agent, every provider, on Free. Paid plans switch optimisation on.
- It does less: no response cache, no evals, no prompt management, no traces, no alerts outside the dashboard.
Pricing, side by side
OpenRouteropenrouter.ai
- Free No fee: 25+ free models, 50 requests a day
- Standard Pay as you go: provider price without markup; 5.5% fee ($0.80 minimum) when buying credits; bring your own key free up to $25,000 of inference a month
- Business Pay as you go: 8% platform fee; EU or US in-region routing; 1,000 workspaces
- Enterprise Contact: fee discounts, SSO and SAML, contractual SLAs
Vigil vigil.tools/pricing
- Free $0: every agent monitored; 10,000 logged calls a month, 7 days of history; every optimisation On during your 7-day trial, as Plus, then Shadow only
- Plus $29/mo: every optimisation On up to $100 saved a billing month, then Shadow until the next; 500,000 logged calls, 30 days
- Pro $99/mo: every optimisation On up to $500 saved a billing month, then Shadow until the next; 2,000,000 logged calls, 90 days
- Supreme $299/mo: every optimisation On up to $2,000 saved a billing month, then Shadow until the next; Unlimited logged calls, 365 days
- Enterprise Custom: by contract
Monthly, excl. VAT. Monitoring is free on every plan; what a paid plan buys is a higher limit on the money Vigil saves you per billing month before optimisations go to Shadow.
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