Amux AI

ZenMux alternatives

The best ZenMux alternatives

The leading ZenMux alternatives are Amux AI, OpenRouter, Requesty, Vercel AI Gateway, LiteLLM and Portkey. Teams usually switch for three reasons: lower prices on leading models, vendor-native image and video protocols, or fuller team and budget controls. Below, six leading options are compared on pricing, protocol compatibility, hosting model and governance.

Get startedBrowse models and pricing

Last verified 2026-10-19

At a glance

OptionDeploymentPricingBest for
Amux AIOur productHostedNo markup or top-up fee; discounted low-cost and official channelsTeams that want lower costs, vendor-native protocols, or enterprise-grade organization and budget management.
OpenRouterHostedNo inference markup; 5.5% fee on card top-upsDevelopers who prioritize model count and need broad long-tail and open-weight coverage.
RequestyHosted5% service feeTeams that need EU data residency, visual routing policies and an MCP gateway.
Vercel AI GatewayHostedNo markup; payment fees passed onTeams already building on Vercel and the AI SDK.
LiteLLMOpen source, self-hostedFree and open source; pay each upstream directlyTeams that require fully self-managed deployment and strict control over the data path.
PortkeyHosted or self-hostedPriced by log volume, from $49/monthEnterprise teams that prioritize logging, guardrails and compliance.

What to look for

  1. 01

    Pricing

    Whether inference is marked up, whether prices below the official rate are offered, whether top-ups carry a fee and whether credit expires.

  2. 02

    Protocol compatibility

    Whether the protocols your SDKs and tools use are supported natively, including the default form of the Gemini SDK. Native support means migrating by changing the base URL.

  3. 03

    Multimodal coverage

    Whether image and video generation are covered beyond text, and whether they keep the vendor’s native request format.

  4. 04

    Hosted or self-hosted

    Hosted services remove deployment and operations work; self-hosted options give full control of the data path but leave upstream accounts, keys and scaling to you.

  5. 05

    Teams and governance

    Organizations, workspaces, role permissions and multi-level spend limits are the foundation for using LLMs across a growing team.

  6. 06

    Data privacy

    Whether prompts and responses are stored, whether they are used for training, and whether zero-retention options exist.

Top ZenMux alternatives

  1. 01

    Amux AI

    Our productHosted

    A hosted LLM API gateway with 80+ text, image and video models, no inference markup, no top-up fees and low-cost channels far below official pricing and discounted official channels. Natively supports OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini protocols plus vendor image and video protocols.

    Pricing
    No markup or top-up fee; discounted low-cost and official channels
    Best for
    Teams that want lower costs, vendor-native protocols, or enterprise-grade organization and budget management.
    Considerations
    Embeddings, speech and subscription plans are on the roadmap; bringing your own upstream keys is not supported yet.
    Get startedSee the full Amux AI vs ZenMux comparison
  2. 02

    OpenRouter

    Hosted

    A hosted model marketplace advertising 500+ models from 80+ providers, with BYOK and enterprise SSO.

    Pricing
    No inference markup; 5.5% fee on card top-ups
    Best for
    Developers who prioritize model count and need broad long-tail and open-weight coverage.
    Considerations
    Top-ups carry a fee; workspace budgets and role assignment are Enterprise-only.
  3. 03

    Requesty

    Hosted

    A hosted, OpenAI-compatible router advertising 600+ models, with fallbacks, load balancing and latency routing.

    Pricing
    5% service fee
    Best for
    Teams that need EU data residency, visual routing policies and an MCP gateway.
    Considerations
    Adds a 5% service fee; group budgets, full RBAC and SSO are Enterprise-only.
  4. 04

    Vercel AI Gateway

    Hosted

    Vercel's hosted gateway with no markup and no platform fee on tokens, including BYOK.

    Pricing
    No markup; payment fees passed on
    Best for
    Teams already building on Vercel and the AI SDK.
    Considerations
    Requires a Vercel team account; purchased credits expire after one year.
  5. 05

    LiteLLM

    Open source, self-hosted

    An MIT-licensed Python SDK and self-hosted proxy that unifies calls to 100+ LLMs.

    Pricing
    Free and open source; pay each upstream directly
    Best for
    Teams that require fully self-managed deployment and strict control over the data path.
    Considerations
    You deploy and operate it yourself and manage accounts, keys and billing for each upstream; SSO and audit logs are enterprise features.
  6. 06

    Portkey

    Hosted or self-hosted

    A gateway centered on observability and governance, available as open-source self-hosted software or a hosted service.

    Pricing
    Priced by log volume, from $49/month
    Best for
    Enterprise teams that prioritize logging, guardrails and compliance.
    Considerations
    Priced by log volume — the Production plan is $49/month for 100,000 logs; you bring your own upstream accounts.

Frequently asked questions

It depends on your priority. For lower costs, vendor-native image and video protocols or team budgets, choose Amux AI. For the largest model catalog, choose OpenRouter. For EU data residency, choose Requesty. If you are deep in the Vercel ecosystem, use Vercel AI Gateway. For fully self-managed deployment, choose LiteLLM.

Among hosted options, Amux AI has no inference markup and no top-up fee, and low-cost channels go far below official pricing while official channels are discounted too; OpenRouter charges 5.5% on card top-ups, Requesty adds a 5% service fee, and Vercel passes payment fees on to you. Self-hosted options have no platform fee but carry deployment and operations costs, and you pay each upstream at its official price.

Amux AI natively implements Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, Volcengine Seedance, MiniMax and xAI video protocols, so existing client code only needs a new base URL, and also offers a unified task API. Most other hosted options define their own video APIs, so calling code has to be rewritten for each platform.

Most platforms are compatible with the OpenAI SDK, so switching usually means changing the base URL and API key. Code that uses the Vertex-style Gemini endpoint can drop vertexai=True on platforms that support the default Gemini form.

Get started

Minutes from now,
your first request is live.

  1. 1Create an account
  2. 2Create an API key
  3. 3Swap the base_url and call
Base URL
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ZenMux and other product names mentioned on this page are trademarks of their respective owners. Information about third-party products is compiled from their official public sources for evaluation purposes only and may change; refer to each vendor's website for current details. To report an inaccuracy, contact support@amux.ai.