Why I Built on Top of OpenRouter Instead of Building a Model Gateway from Scratch

Why I Built on Top of OpenRouter Instead of Building a Model Gateway from Scratch By Hossein Shahrokni | March 2026 The most common comment I get on Komilion: "Isn't this just a wrapper around OpenRouter?" Yes, partly. And that's a deliberate choice. Here's the reasoning. What OpenRouter actually gives you OpenRouter is a model marketplace — one API key, 400+ models, provider-level pricing. You call openrouter.ai/api/v1, pick any model by ID, pay the provider rate directly. No markup on the models. What it does not give you: routing logic. You still decide which model handles which request. OpenRouter is the menu. You're still the waiter. That's a real gap for most production AI apps, and it's the gap Komilion was built to fill. Why build on top instead of building from scratch When I started Komilion, I had two options: Option A: Build a full model gateway. Direct integrations with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Groq. Manage API keys, rate limits, failover, billing, and model ava