OmniRoute is a free, MIT-licensed AI gateway that you run on your own machine. It offers coding tools like Claude Code, Codex and Cursor a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint, then routes each request across the providers you connect and falls back to the next one when a quota runs out.

It is real, active software: the GitHub repository has passed 64,000 stars and 9,000 forks since it launched in February 2026. Two parts of the pitch need a close read before you connect any keys, though. The free-token headline is a catalog estimate, and one default setting needs fixing on day one.

What is OmniRoute?

OmniRoute is a self-hosted AI gateway: a local server, on port 20128 by default, that accepts OpenAI-style requests and forwards them to the providers you connect. Its README lists 352 providers, with 154 marked free in its catalog.

The feature people install it for is Combos: an ordered list of models with a fallback strategy such as strict priority or round-robin. OmniRoute tracks each provider’s quota window, five-hour and weekly resets for subscriptions and daily or monthly ones for API keys, and when one model runs dry the combo moves to the next instead of returning an error to your editor, according to a hands-on write-up by Pinggy.

It also compresses prompts before they leave your machine. Two engines, Caveman for prose and RTK for repetitive tool output such as build logs, cut token counts by 15% to 95% depending on the content, while code, URLs and JSON pass through untouched. OmniRoute can expose itself as an MCP server too, with omniroute --mcp.

Setting up OmniRoute: npm or Docker, then one password

OmniRoute installs with one npm command or one Docker command, and both serve the dashboard and the API on port 20128.

1. Install. Run npm install -g omniroute and then omniroute, or docker run -p 20128:20128 diegosouzapw/omniroute. The npm route needs Node 22, or Node 24 through 26; Node 23 is excluded.
2. Set a password first. Export INITIAL_PASSWORD before the first start. Without it, the dashboard login defaults to the literal string CHANGEME.
3. Connect providers. Subscriptions such as Claude Code and GitHub Copilot connect through OAuth, API-key providers through paste-and-save, and the no-login free pools through a toggle.
4. Point your tools at it. For Claude Code, set ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to http://localhost:20128 with your OmniRoute key. For Cursor, Cline or Continue, pick an OpenAI-compatible provider and use http://localhost:20128/v1.

Pinggy measured the idle container at roughly 541 MB of RAM and about 3% CPU. On Windows the npm install works the same way, and the project also offers an Electron desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Is OmniRoute safe, and is the free part real?

OmniRoute is legitimate open-source software, published under the MIT license with public code and regular releases; the latest tagged release, v3.8.50, came out on August 26, 2026. Whether a given install is safe depends on how you configure it, because the gateway ends up holding every provider key and login you give it.

On first start OmniRoute generates its own JWT, storage-encryption and API-key secrets and saves them in its data directory. The README also lists a prompt-injection guard on every model route, an opt-in guardrail that masks leaked API keys in both directions, and an optional OIDC login for the dashboard. What it leaves to you:

• Change the default password. The dashboard login is CHANGEME until you set INITIAL_PASSWORD; omniroute reset-password recovers access if you lose the new one.
• Keep the dashboard off the open internet. The management API rejected requests without a key in Pinggy’s test, returning 401, but remote access to the dashboard belongs behind a password-protected tunnel or a VPN.
• Leave MITM decryption off unless you need it. An optional transparent-proxy mode captures command-line tools that ignore proxy settings by installing its own certificate authority into your trust store, which lets OmniRoute read that encrypted traffic.
• Read each provider’s terms before connecting a subscription. Routing a personal subscription through a proxy, or pooling several free accounts, may conflict with a provider’s rules.

The free-token figure needs the same care. OmniRoute’s free-tier reference counts 455 free-tier entries across 40 recurring pools and estimates about 1.51 billion free tokens a month, rising to about 2.13 billion in the first month with signup credits. The project re-audits that number every two weeks and says it moves in both directions as providers add or end free tiers. A few large pools carry most of it: Pinggy’s July count had Mistral at about a billion tokens a month, throttled to two requests a minute.

The no-login pools are the least dependable part. In Pinggy’s test, only two of seven such providers answered; the rest returned errors including 403, 418 and 502.

The appeal is easy to see from the people installing it:

“Hi this is my first post but been reading people have been asking about what free models are good. Im ngl I can’t afford to run Claude 247 so been looking for alternatives. I found this repo yesterday and it’s really good. I hope this helps someone? I won’t post a link but the name is OmniRoute check it out :)”
– r/opencode, August 2026 (9 upvotes)

Plan around the keys and subscriptions you already pay for, and treat the free pools as extra capacity when they happen to answer.

FAQ

What is the default OmniRoute login?

The default OmniRoute dashboard password is CHANGEME unless you set the INITIAL_PASSWORD environment variable before the first start. Run omniroute reset-password to recover access if you forget the password you set.

Does OmniRoute work on Windows?

Yes. OmniRoute works on Windows through npm with a supported Node version or through Docker, and the project also offers an Electron desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux.

What is the difference between OmniRoute and OpenRouter?

OmniRoute is a gateway you host yourself at no charge, while OpenRouter is a hosted service that adds a 5.5% fee on the credits you buy from it, per its pricing page. The OpenRouter alternatives guide compares both with the other main options.