{"slug": "turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi", "title": "Turn ~800M Free AI Tokens Into a Single OpenAI API with FreeLLMAPI", "summary": "FreeLLMAPI, a self-hosted proxy that aggregates free tiers from 14 AI providers (such as Gemini, Groq, and Mistral) into a single OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, offering approximately 800 million free tokens per month combined. It features automatic failover, per-key rate tracking, and an admin dashboard, but is intended for personal use only, with limitations including no tool calling or vision support and unpredictable latency. The project is open-source under the MIT license and aims to simplify prototyping for developers and researchers without upfront costs.", "body_md": "## The Problem Nobody Talks About\n\nEvery major AI lab now offers a free tier. Gemini, Groq, Mistral, Cerebras — they all give you a few million tokens a month, a few thousand requests a day.\n\nOn paper, that's generous. In practice, you end up juggling 14 different SDKs, 14 rate limits, and 14 places a request can silently fail.\n\n**FreeLLMAPI** solves exactly that.\n\n## What It Does\n\nIt's a self-hosted proxy that aggregates free tiers from 14 providers behind a **single /v1/chat/completions endpoint** — fully compatible with the OpenAI SDK.\n\nSupported providers:\n\n| Provider | Notable Models |\n|---|---|\n| Google Gemini | 2.5 Pro / Flash |\n| Groq | Llama 4, Qwen, Kimi |\n| Cerebras | Llama 3.3, Qwen |\n| SambaNova | Llama 3.3 70B |\n| NVIDIA NIM | Full catalog |\n| Mistral | La Plateforme |\n| OpenRouter | Free-tier models |\n| GitHub Models | GPT-4o, Llama, Phi |\n| Hugging Face | Inference Providers |\n| Cloudflare | Workers AI |\n| Zhipu | GLM-4 series |\n| Moonshot | Kimi |\n| MiniMax | abab / hailuo |\n\nCombined: roughly **~800M tokens/month** across all providers.\n\n## Zero Code Changes\n\nPoint your existing OpenAI SDK at `localhost:3001/v1`\n\n:\n\n``` python\nfrom openai import OpenAI\n\nclient = OpenAI(\n    base_url=\"http://localhost:3001/v1\",\n    api_key=\"freellmapi-your-unified-key\",\n)\n\nresp = client.chat.completions.create(\n    model=\"auto\",  # router picks the best available\n    messages=[{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"Summarise the fall of Rome in one sentence.\"}],\n)\n\nprint(resp.choices[0].message.content)\nprint(\"Routed via:\", resp.headers.get(\"x-routed-via\"))\n```\n\nThat's it. Every response includes an `X-Routed-Via`\n\nheader so you know which provider actually served the request.\n\n## Technical Highlights\n\n**Automatic failover** — On 429 / timeout / 5xx, the router cools down the key and retries the next provider in your chain, up to 20 attempts.\n\n**Sticky sessions** — Multi-turn conversations stay on the same model for 30 minutes. This matters more than it sounds — switching models mid-conversation causes subtle hallucination spikes.\n\n**Per-key rate tracking** — RPM, RPD, TPM, and TPD counters per `(platform, model, key)`\n\n. The router always picks a key that's under its caps.\n\n**Encrypted key storage** — AES-256-GCM before hitting SQLite. Upstream provider keys never leave your machine.\n\n**Admin dashboard** — React + Vite UI to manage keys, reorder the fallback chain, inspect analytics, and test prompts in a playground.\n\n**Lightweight** — Runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 at ~40MB RAM idle.\n\n## Setup in 3 Lines\n\n```\ngit clone https://github.com/tashfeenahmed/freellmapi\ncd freellmapi && npm install\ncp .env.example .env && npm run dev\n```\n\nOpen `localhost:5173`\n\n, add your provider API keys, grab your unified key → done.\n\n## The Honest Part\n\nA few things the README says clearly, and you should know upfront:\n\n**Intelligence degrades throughout the day.** Gemini 2.5 Pro and GPT-4o (via GitHub Models) have the lowest daily caps. Once they're exhausted, the router falls back to smaller models. Expect effective quality to drop in the late hours — then reset at UTC midnight.\n\n**Tool calling and vision are not yet supported.** Text-only for now. PRs are welcome.\n\n**Latency is unpredictable.** Cerebras and Groq are extremely fast. Others are not. You get whichever one is available.\n\n**Personal use only.** No multi-tenant auth. Don't expose this to the internet.\n\n**Free tiers change without notice.** When a provider tightens limits, you'll see 429s until the catalog is updated.\n\n## Who This Is For\n\n✅ Building AI agents or coding assistants and want to prototype without spending money upfront\n\n✅ Researchers and students who hit rate limits on one provider and want seamless fallback\n\n✅ Anyone tired of maintaining multiple SDK integrations\n\n❌ Production workloads — use a paid API with an SLA\n\n## Quick ToS Note\n\nThe project includes a detailed review of each provider's terms. Most are fine for single-user personal use. Notable exceptions: **Cohere's trial ToS explicitly forbids personal/household use**, and **NVIDIA NIM's free tier is scoped to evaluation only**.\n\nRead the full table in the README before adding keys.\n\nFreeLLMAPI is MIT licensed and actively welcoming contributors — especially for adding embeddings, tool calling, and new providers.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/mervindublin/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi-2gm9", "published_at": "2026-05-21 08:21:17+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-21 08:32:01.601442+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "developer-tools", "open-source", "products"], "entities": ["FreeLLMAPI", "Gemini", "Groq", "Mistral", "Cerebras", "OpenAI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/turn-800m-free-ai-tokens-into-a-single-openai-api-with-freellmapi.jsonld"}}