#1414th of 42 in Gateways and observability
clawrouter
Local LLM router that picks the cheapest capable model per request
- Stars
- 6.6k
- License
- MIT
- Last commit
- Oct 2026
- Last release
- Oct 2026
- Language
- TypeScript
5,609 on 4 Apr 20266,649 on 31 Oct 2026
From GitHub's daily star counts.
Checked on GitHub.
Overview
ClawRouter runs a local proxy on port 8402 with an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. It scores each request across 15 dimensions and picks the cheapest model that can handle it, from about 90 chat models behind BlockRun's gateway. Payment is USDC over x402 on Solana or Base, or a card-funded API key. Seven free models need no signup. It also installs as an OpenClaw plugin.
Who it is for: Agent builders wanting cost-based model routing with USDC or card billing
Ranked among open-source alternatives to OpenRouter (#9 of 10).
Strengths
- Routing runs locally in under 1 ms, with no external calls for the decision
- OpenAI-compatible proxy works with Cursor, continue.dev and the OpenAI SDK
- Seven free models usable without signup, key or wallet
- Pay by x402 USDC per request or by card-funded API key
Weaknesses
- Paid models go through BlockRun's hosted gateway, not directly to each provider
- Savings figures come from the vendor's own published workload mix
- About 90 chat models, fewer than OpenRouter's listed 200+
- Card top-ups cost 5.5% + $0.30; wallet use adds $0.001 per transaction
What it needs
- no GPU
- Needs Node.js, BlockRun gateway (blockrun.ai), USDC wallet (Solana or Base) or BlockRun API key
- Models: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, DeepSeek
- port 8402
Quick answers
Is clawrouter open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the MIT license.
Does clawrouter need a GPU?
No, it runs without one.
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|---|---|---|
| 1 | OmniRouteLLM gateway routing one OpenAI-compatible endpoint across 372 providers | 96 out of 100 |
| 2 | new-apiGateway that unifies LLM providers behind OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini APIs | 90 out of 100 |
| 3 | MLflowTracing, evals, prompt registry and AI gateway plus classic ML tracking | 89 out of 100 |
| #4 | LiteLLMOpenAI-format gateway and Python SDK for calling 100+ LLM providers | 87 out of 100 |
| #5 | freellmapiOpenAI-compatible gateway pooling free-tier LLM providers with automatic failover | 86 out of 100 |