{"slug": "testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access", "title": "Testing OpenRouter API: Free AI Model Access", "summary": "A developer demonstrated how to call OpenRouter's unified chat completions API to access free AI models, providing a Python function and curl example that authenticate with an API key and target models tagged with the ':free' suffix. The walkthrough lists several no-cost options, including Google's gemini-2.0-flash-exp, Meta's llama-3.1-8b-instruct, Mistral's mistral-7b-instruct, and Microsoft's phi-3-mini-128k-instruct, positioning the service as a way to test and build AI applications without API costs.", "body_md": "Learn how to test and use free AI models through OpenRouter's unified API.\n\n`requests`: `pip install requests`\n\n```\ncurl -X POST https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \\\n  -H \"Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY\" \\\n  -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" \\\n  -d '{\n    \"model\": \"google/gemini-2.0-flash-exp:free\",\n    \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"Say hello in 3 languages\"}]\n  }'\npython\nimport requests\nimport os\n\nOPENROUTER_URL = \"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions\"\n\ndef test_openrouter(prompt: str, model: str = \"google/gemini-2.0-flash-exp:free\") -> str:\n    \"\"\"Test OpenRouter API with a prompt.\"\"\"\n    headers = {\n        \"Authorization\": f\"Bearer {os.getenv('OPENROUTER_API_KEY')}\",\n        \"Content-Type\": \"application/json\"\n    }\n    data = {\n        \"model\": model,\n        \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": prompt}],\n        \"temperature\": 0.7,\n        \"max_tokens\": 150\n    }\n\n    response = requests.post(OPENROUTER_URL, headers=headers, json=data, timeout=30)\n\n    if response.status_code == 200:\n        return response.json()[\"choices\"][0][\"message\"][\"content\"]\n    else:\n        raise Exception(f\"Error: {response.status_code} - {response.text}\")\n\n# Test it\nif __name__ == \"__main__\":\n    prompt = \"Explain the difference between REST and GraphQL in 2 sentences\"\n    try:\n        result = test_openrouter(prompt)\n        print(f\"Q: {prompt}\")\n        print(f\"A: {result}\")\n    except Exception as e:\n        print(f\"Error: {e}\")\n```\n\nOpenRouter offers many free models (look for `:free` suffix):\n\n| Model | Best For | \n|---|---|\n| `google/gemini-2.0-flash-exp:free` | General chat, coding | \n| `meta-llama/llama-3.1-8b-instruct:free` | Reasoning, analysis | \n| `mistralai/mistral-7b-instruct:free` | Fast responses | \n| `microsoft/phi-3-mini-128k-instruct:free` | Long context | \n\nOpenRouter provides a unified interface to dozens of free AI models. Perfect for testing, learning, and building AI-powered applications without API costs.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/ipsphil_digital/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access-2h5", "published_at": "2026-10-12 05:28:20+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-12 05:39:49.645401+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "large-language-models", "generative-ai", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["OpenRouter", "Google", "Gemini 2.0 Flash", "Meta", "Llama 3.1 8B Instruct", "Mistral AI", "Microsoft", "Phi-3 Mini"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/testing-openrouter-api-free-ai-model-access.jsonld"}}