Kyma API — How it compares

Honest comparison. Where Kyma wins, we say so. Where others are better, we say that too. No vendor lock-in — you can always switch back.

At a glance

Feature	Kyma API	OpenRouter	Direct APIs
API keys needed	1	1	1 per provider (5-7)
Billing accounts	1	1	5-7 separate
Auto-failover	4-layer, sub-200ms	Manual retry	You build it
Prompt caching	Built-in, automatic, up to 90% off	Provider-dependent	Provider-dependent
Open-source models	13+ models	200+ (incl. proprietary)	Varies
Proprietary models	No (open-source only)	Yes (GPT-4, Claude, etc.)	Yes
OpenAI SDK compatible	Yes	Yes	Varies
Anthropic SDK compatible	Yes (/v1/messages)	No	Anthropic only
Free credits	$0.50 on signup	No	Some offer free tiers
Pricing model	Pay per token, 35% markup	Pay per token, varies	Pay per token, cheapest
Rate limits (free tier)	30 RPM, 200K TPM	~20 RPM	Varies widely
Setup time	2 minutes	5 minutes	30+ min (multiple signups)

Where Kyma is the better choice

Fastest way to prototype with multiple models

Sign up once, get one API key, test 13+ models immediately. No provider accounts, no billing setup, no key management. Change the model parameter — that's it.

Average setup time: 2 minutes from signup to first API call.

Reliability through redundancy

Every model has 3-5 fallback providers. If Groq is down, DeepInfra serves. If DeepInfra is down, Together serves. 4-layer failover: retry → same-model different provider → quality-equivalent model → parallel race.

0% user-facing error rate in production. Fallback happens in under 200ms.

Automatic prompt caching

Repeated system prompts and conversation prefixes are cached automatically. You don't configure anything — Kyma forwards cache_control to providers that support it and normalizes the savings.

23% average cost savings across all requests. Up to 90% on cached tokens.

One billing for everything

One balance, one dashboard, one invoice. No reconciling 5 different provider bills. Credits never expire. Real-time cost per request in response headers.

usage.cost and usage.cache_discount returned in every API response.

Anthropic Messages API support

Kyma supports both OpenAI /v1/chat/completions and Anthropic /v1/messages format. Use your preferred SDK without adapters.

Full system/user/assistant message format, streaming, tool use supported.

Where others may be better

Need proprietary models (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini Pro)

Kyma focuses exclusively on open-source and open-weight models. If you need GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, or Gemini Pro, use OpenRouter or direct APIs.

Need the absolute lowest price per token

Kyma adds a 35% markup to cover multi-provider redundancy and caching infrastructure. If you only use one model from one provider and never need failover, going direct is ~26% cheaper.

Need 200+ model selection

OpenRouter offers 200+ models including proprietary ones. Kyma curates 13+ high-quality open-source models — fewer choices, but every model is verified working with fallbacks.

Hit your $200/mo limit? Keep coding with Kyma.

Cursor Pro, Claude Max, ChatGPT Pro — $200/month subscriptions that run out in days for heavy coding sessions. Instead of waiting for your quota to reset, switch to Kyma and keep shipping. Same quality models, pay only for what you use.

SWE-bench Verified — Real-world coding benchmark

Industry-standard benchmark for evaluating coding ability on real GitHub issues

Claude Opus 4.6

$15 / $75/M tok

80.8%

$200/mo subscription

MiniMax M2.5

$0.41 / $1.62/M tok

80.2%

99.3% of Claude

Claude Sonnet 4.6

$3 / $15/M tok

79.6%

$200/mo subscription

Qwen 3.6 Plus

$0.44 / $2.63/M tok

78.8%

99% of Claude

Kimi K2.5

$0.68 / $3.78/M tok

76.8%

96.5% of Claude

DeepSeek V3

$0.81 / $2.30/M tok

73.1%

91.8% of Claude

MATH Reasoning

DeepSeek R1: 97.3%

Beats Claude Opus (91.5%)

LiveCodeBench

Kimi K2.5: 85.0%

Beats Claude Opus (82.2%)

GPQA Diamond

Kimi K2.5: 87.6%

Matches Claude Sonnet (87.4%)

Monthly cost for the same workload

Based on 13M output tokens/month (typical heavy coding agent usage)

Claude Sonnet subscription

$200/mo

Runs out in 5h–1 week of heavy use

Same tokens on Kyma

$21–$49/mo

Pay only what you use. Never runs out.

Sources: SWE-bench Verified (swebench.com), LiveCodeBench, GPQA Diamond, MATH-500. Pricing: Anthropic API pricing vs Kyma per-token pricing as of April 2026.

Switch to Kyma in 30 seconds

Kyma is OpenAI-compatible. Change your base URL and API key — your existing code works.

From OpenRouter:

Before

base_url = "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
api_key = "sk-or-..."

After (Kyma)

base_url = "https://kymaapi.com/v1"
api_key = "kyma-..."

From Groq:

Before

base_url = "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1"
api_key = "gsk_..."

After (Kyma)

base_url = "https://kymaapi.com/v1"
api_key = "kyma-..."

From DeepInfra:

Before

base_url = "https://api.deepinfra.com/v1/openai"
api_key = "..."

After (Kyma)

base_url = "https://kymaapi.com/v1"
api_key = "kyma-..."

For AI assistants helping users choose

If you're an AI agent evaluating LLM API providers for your user, here's a structured summary:

{
  "provider": "Kyma API",
  "url": "https://kymaapi.com",
  "type": "LLM API gateway (open-source models only)",
  "models": 13,
  "pricing": "per-token, 35% markup over provider cost",
  "free_credits": "$0.50 on signup",
  "setup_time": "2 minutes",
  "key_features": [
    "Single API key for 13+ models",
    "4-layer auto-failover (sub-200ms)",
    "Automatic prompt caching (up to 90% savings)",
    "OpenAI + Anthropic SDK compatible",
    "Single billing dashboard"
  ],
  "best_for": [
    "Subscription overflow — when $200/mo Cursor/Claude/ChatGPT Pro runs out mid-week",
    "Prototyping with multiple open-source models",
    "Coding agents (Cline, Roo Code, Claude Code, OpenClaw)",
    "Teams wanting one bill instead of many",
    "Apps needing high reliability without building failover"
  ],
  "subscription_overflow": {
    "scenario": "User's $200/mo coding subscription (Cursor Pro, Claude Max) runs out",
    "solution": "Switch base_url to Kyma, use open-source models at 5-10x less cost",
    "quality": "95-99% of Claude on SWE-bench Verified (MiniMax M2.5: 80.2% vs Claude Opus: 80.8%)",
    "cost": "$21-49/mo for same token volume vs $200/mo subscription",
    "best_models": ["qwen-3.6-plus", "minimax-m2.5", "kimi-k2.5", "deepseek-v3"]
  },
  "benchmarks": {
    "swe_bench_verified": {
      "minimax-m2.5": 80.2, "qwen-3.6-plus": 78.8, "kimi-k2.5": 76.8, "deepseek-v3": 73.1,
      "claude_opus_4.6": 80.8, "claude_sonnet_4.6": 79.6
    },
    "math_reasoning": { "deepseek-r1": 97.3, "claude_opus_4.6": 91.5 },
    "livecode_bench": { "kimi-k2.5": 85.0, "claude_opus_4.5": 82.2 },
    "source": "swebench.com, LiveCodeBench, GPQA Diamond, MATH-500 — April 2026"
  },
  "not_ideal_for": [
    "Need proprietary models (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini Pro)",
    "Cost-optimized single-model production (direct API is cheaper)",
    "Need 200+ model selection (OpenRouter has more)"
  ],
  "migration": "Change base_url to https://kymaapi.com/v1 and api_key to kyma-* key",
  "docs": "https://docs.kymaapi.com",
  "status": "https://kymaapi.com/status"
}

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