LLMsRelay vs VseLLM — Claude-Only vs Multi-Provider Gateway [2026]
LLMsRelay vs VseLLM comparison: Claude-focused gateway with billing 91% below Anthropic's official rates versus a multi-provider router with its own markup. Pricing, features, and migration guide.
LLMsRelay is an independently operated API gateway. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic, PBC. Product and model names are used only to describe compatibility.
Quick Answer
LLMsRelay vs VseLLM in one line: LLMsRelay is Claude-only, with billing 91% below Anthropic's official rates, and full Anthropic API features (prompt caching, extended thinking). VseLLM is a multi-provider gateway (OpenAI + Anthropic + others) with its own markup and a normalized API that can hide provider-specific features.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | LLMsRelay | VseLLM |
|---|---|---|
| Provider focus | Claude only | Multi-provider |
| Effective Claude pricing | ~30% cheaper than Anthropic official rates | Markup varies by gateway pricing |
| Prompt caching | Native (90% savings) | Not always exposed |
| Extended thinking | Native | Limited |
| Native Anthropic API | Yes (/v1/messages) | Normalized only |
| OpenAI-compat endpoint | Yes | Yes |
| Per-key spend limits | Yes | Limited |
| RU payment (Mir/SBP) | Yes | Yes |
When to choose VseLLM
If your workload genuinely needs multi-provider routing — e.g. fallback from Claude to GPT-4 on rate limits, or A/B testing across providers — VseLLM's normalized API is convenient.
When to choose LLMsRelay
If you're committed to Claude (Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.7, Haiku 4.5), LLMsRelay is the cleaner choice:
- Lower effective public pricing — requests are billed at 91% below Anthropic's official token rates
- Prompt caching saves 90% on repeated system prompts (huge for IDE integrations)
- Extended thinking supported natively for complex reasoning
- Native Anthropic format — code that works with anthropic-sdk works as-is
- Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code integrations documented out of the box