Straitly vs OpenRouter vs RelayPlane
Straitly launched in August 2026 claiming to have killed OpenRouter by charging 0% markup instead of ~5%. That's a real fight, between two hosted gateways competing on fee size. RelayPlane is a different kind of tool: free, local, MIT-licensed software that isn't metering your tokens at all. Here's the honest three-way breakdown.
TL;DR
Straitly
The cheapest hosted gateway right now, if the 0%-markup launch pricing holds. Widest catalog through one key, high self-reported uptime. Still a cloud middleman you sign up for and still pay metered token spend to.
OpenRouter
The incumbent hosted gateway. Mature, widely integrated, ~5% markup on every dollar routed. The exact fee Straitly is trying to undercut.
RelayPlane
Not a hosted gateway. A free, local proxy that routes by task complexity and stops runaway agent spend before it happens. $0, no account, MIT.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Straitly | OpenRouter | RelayPlane |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business model Straitly and OpenRouter are the same shape of business, a paid middleman between you and model providers, competing on how small the fee is. RelayPlane isn't in that fee at all. | Hosted gateway, 0% markup on metered tokens (launch pricing) | Hosted gateway, ~5% markup on metered tokens | Free, MIT-licensed software you run yourself |
| Deployment | Cloud gateway | Cloud gateway | Local, in-process (npm install) |
| No account required | |||
| Open source | |||
| Model catalog Straitly and OpenRouter both lead on raw catalog breadth through one hosted key. Honest tradeoff: that's real, and it's not RelayPlane's focus. | 142+ models, 20+ providers (self-reported) | 400+ models (self-reported) | Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, plus OpenRouter passthrough |
| Uptime / failover strategy | Intelligent re-routing on provider failure, 99.98% success rate (self-reported) | Automatic fallback across providers | Multi-account credential pool with OAuth refresh, your own accounts |
| Routes by task complexity (not just failure) Neither hosted gateway decides which model a request needs based on how hard the task is. RelayPlane classifies every request and sends simple work to cheap models, hard work to expensive ones. | |||
| Session budget caps / kill switches Neither Straitly's launch material nor OpenRouter's product surface a way to halt a runaway agent mid-loop before it burns budget. RelayPlane does, in-process. | |||
| Data stays on your machine |
Straitly figures are self-reported from its August 2026 launch announcement and not independently verified. OpenRouter figures are from its public pricing and documentation.
What You Actually Pay
Straitly
- What you pay: Metered token spend + 0% markup (30% off first $10k at launch, then standard)
- Free credits: $100 upfront (launch promo)
- Where the fee goes long-term: Unclear post-launch pricing
OpenRouter
- What you pay: Metered token spend + ~5% markup
- Free credits: None standard
- Where the fee goes long-term: Public: ~5% on every dollar routed
RelayPlane
- What you pay: $0. Use your own provider keys or your existing Claude Max plan.
- Free credits: Not applicable, there's nothing to meter
- Where the fee goes long-term: No fee, ever. MIT license.
Which One Should You Use?
You want one key, the widest model catalog, and don't mind paying metered spend
Straitly is worth a look while the 0%-markup launch pricing holds, it undercuts OpenRouter's ~5% fee on the same kind of hosted access.
You want the most mature, widely-integrated hosted gateway
OpenRouter is the incumbent for a reason. If tooling compatibility and track record matter more than shaving a few percent off your bill, it's still a safe default.
You want to stop overspending on tokens, not just pay a smaller fee on the same spend
RelayPlane runs on your machine, routes each request to the model the task actually needs, and kills a runaway agent before it burns your budget. It caught a real 72,900-token agent stuck in a 21-minute loop. There is no markup to undercut because there is no fee.
Try RelayPlane in 30 Seconds
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Skip the fee fight entirely
No account. No monthly fee. No markup, because there is nothing to mark up. MIT open source, running with Claude Code and Cursor in under 30 seconds.