LLM API Providers · reliability comparison
OpenAI API vs OpenRouter: which is more reliable? (2026)
OpenRouter is more reliable than OpenAI API, scoring 62.9 vs 49.0 out of 100. Over the last 90 days OpenAI API reported 35 incidents and OpenRouter reported 10, with effective uptime of 98.73% and 99.44% respectively. OpenAI API resolves incidents faster on average (6h 8m).
Data updated Nov 2, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | OpenAI API | OpenRouter |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 49.0 | 62.9 |
| Rank (LLM API providers) | #9 | #8 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 98.73% | 99.44% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 35 | 10 |
| Partial / major outages | 1 | 2 |
| Avg time to resolve | 6h 8m | 6h 48m |
| Outages we detected | 0 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 100/100 | 100/100 |
Where OpenAI API and OpenRouter differ
- OpenAI API reported 3.5× as many incidents as OpenRouter over the last 90 days (35 vs 10).
- OpenRouter had 2 partial or major outages, compared with 1 for OpenAI API.
- OpenAI API fixes problems faster: 6h 8m on average, against 6h 48m for OpenRouter.
- OpenAI API's longest outage on record lasted 40m (Sep 15, 2026); OpenRouter's lasted 2h 10m (Oct 25, 2026).
90-day uptime
OpenAI API
OpenRouter
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent OpenAI API incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 30, 2026 · resolved in 4h 1m
Elevated errors for GPT Image 2 API image edits
Affected: Images
- Degraded performanceOct 27, 2026 · resolved in 1h 18m
6.1 Sol Degraded Model Performance
Affected: Chat Completions, Responses, Batch
- InformationalOct 27, 2026 · resolved in 29m
- InformationalOct 23, 2026 · resolved in 33m
- InformationalOct 23, 2026 · resolved in 2h 17m
- Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 6h 32m
Elevated ChatGPT conversation and Responses API errors
Affected: Conversations, Responses
Recent OpenRouter incidents
- MaintenanceOct 26, 2026 · resolved in 6d 1h
Affected: Web & Application Services
- Partial outageOct 26, 2026 · resolved in 12m
Affected: Chat (/api/v1/chat/completions)
- Major outageOct 25, 2026 · resolved in 2h 10m
Video webhooks are not being calledofficial update ↗
Affected: Video (/api/v1/videos)
- Degraded performanceOct 15, 2026 · resolved in 1d 13h
Activity logs, usage metrics reporting are experiencing delays
Affected: Web & Application Services
- Degraded performanceOct 14, 2026 · resolved in 42m
Increased errors and latency on API requests in the US Pacific Northwest
Affected: Chat (/api/v1/chat/completions)
- Degraded performanceOct 8, 2026 · resolved in 6h 38m
Usage Reporting Delays in Web App
Affected: Web & Application Services
Other LLM API providers to consider
- Perplexity API · #1 · 99.94% uptime
- Cohere · #2 · 99.94% uptime
- Groq · #3 · 99.94% uptime
- Cerebras Inference · #4 · 99.88% uptime