Why hackers moved from OpenRouter to DeepSeek

1 hacker described this switch in public comments. Their words, with links to the originals.

OpenRouter 1 hacker criticizes it
→
DeepSeek 8 hackers recommend it

What hackers said about the move

“I've switched from OpenRouter to using Deepseek directly from their platform since OpenRouter providers were pretty flaky and inconsistent.”
simjnd, 2026-06-09original comment ↗

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OpenRouter vs DeepSeek

OpenRouterDeepSeek
Hackers who recommend08
Hackers who criticize10
Moved away from it10
Moved to it02

Counts are distinct hackers in the sampled comments, not market share.

Criticism of OpenRouter

No further criticism of OpenRouter captured yet.

Praise for DeepSeek

“it beats frontier model on speed and cost keeping good enough code quality.”
piterrro, 2026-10-28original comment ↗
“I am using DeepSeek directly via the API. The speed is insane.”
wg0, 2026-09-22original comment ↗
“spent time looking at billions of tokens from DeepSeek (and other open models) in our coding agent.”
ahmadawais, 2026-07-07original comment ↗
“A handful of honest participants like DeepSeek are pay as you go instead of trying to sneakily bill you for usage.”
trollbridge, 2026-06-02original comment ↗
“And deepseek v4 flash (the sonnet comparable) costs 3% of what sonnet does.”
calpaterson, 2026-05-29original comment ↗

Other moves from OpenRouter

    Other moves to DeepSeek