| --- |
| title: MY Free LLM API |
| sdk: docker |
| --- |
| |
| <div align="center"> |
|
|
| # FreeLLMAPI |
|
|
| **One OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Twelve free LLM providers. ~1B+ tokens per month.** |
|
|
| Aggregate the free tiers from Google, Groq, Cerebras, SambaNova, NVIDIA, Mistral, OpenRouter, GitHub Models, Cohere, Cloudflare, HuggingFace, and Z.ai (Zhipu) behind a single `/v1/chat/completions` endpoint. Keys are stored encrypted. A router picks the best available model for each request, falls over to the next provider when one is rate-limited, and tracks per-key usage so you stay under every free-tier cap. |
|
|
| [](https://github.com/tashfeenahmed/freellmapi/actions/workflows/ci.yml) |
| [](./LICENSE) |
| [](#contributing) |
|
|
|  |
|
|
| </div> |
|
|
| --- |
|
|
| ## Contents |
|
|
| - [Why this exists](#why-this-exists) |
| - [Supported providers](#supported-providers) |
| - [Features](#features) |
| - [Not yet supported](#not-yet-supported) |
| - [Quick start](#quick-start) |
| - [Using the API](#using-the-api) |
| - [Screenshots](#screenshots) |
| - [How it works](#how-it-works) |
| - [Limitations](#limitations) |
| - [Contributing](#contributing) |
| - [Terms of Service review](#terms-of-service-review) |
| - [Disclaimer](#disclaimer) |
|
|
| ## Why this exists |
|
|
| Every serious AI lab now offers a free tier β a few million tokens a month, a few thousand requests a day. On its own each tier is a toy. Stacked together, they add up to roughly **1.3 billion tokens per month** of working inference capacity, across dozens of models from small-and-fast to reasonably capable. |
|
|
| The problem is that stacking them by hand is painful: fourteen different SDKs, fourteen different rate limits, fourteen places a request can fail. FreeLLMAPI collapses that into one OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Point any OpenAI client library at your local server, and it routes transparently across whichever providers you've added keys for. |
|
|
| ## Supported providers |
|
|
| <table> |
| <tr> |
| <td align="center" width="180"><a href="https://ai.google.dev"><b>Google</b><br/>Gemini 2.5 Flash Β· 3.x previews</a></td> |
| <td align="center" width="180"><a href="https://groq.com"><b>Groq</b><br/>Llama 3.3, Llama 4, GPT-OSS, Qwen3</a></td> |
| <td align="center" width="180"><a href="https://cerebras.ai"><b>Cerebras</b><br/>Qwen3 235B</a></td> |
| <td align="center" width="180"><a href="https://cloud.sambanova.ai"><b>SambaNova</b><br/>DeepSeek V3.x Β· Llama 4 Β· Gemma 3</a></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://mistral.ai"><b>Mistral</b><br/>Large 3 Β· Medium 3.5 Β· Codestral Β· Devstral</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://openrouter.ai"><b>OpenRouter</b><br/>21 free-tier models</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://github.com/marketplace/models"><b>GitHub Models</b><br/>GPT-4.1 Β· GPT-4o</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai"><b>Cloudflare</b><br/>Kimi K2 Β· GLM-4.7 Β· GPT-OSS Β· Granite 4</a></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://cohere.com"><b>Cohere</b><br/>Command R+ Β· Command-A (trial)</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://docs.z.ai"><b>Z.ai (Zhipu)</b><br/>GLM-4.5 Β· GLM-4.7 Flash</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://build.nvidia.com"><b>NVIDIA</b><br/>NIM (disabled by default)</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers"><b>HuggingFace</b><br/>Router β DeepSeek V4 Β· Kimi K2.6 Β· Qwen3</a></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
|
|
| ## Features |
|
|
| - **OpenAI-compatible** β `POST /v1/chat/completions` and `GET /v1/models` work with the official OpenAI SDKs and any OpenAI-compatible client (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Continue, Hermes, etc.). Just change `base_url`. |
| - **Streaming and non-streaming** β Server-Sent Events for `stream: true`, JSON response otherwise. Every provider adapter implements both. |
| - **Tool calling** β OpenAI-style `tools` / `tool_choice` requests are passed through, and assistant `tool_calls` + `tool` role follow-up messages round-trip across providers. |
| - **Automatic fallover** β If the chosen provider returns a 429, 5xx, or times out, the router skips it, puts the key on a short cooldown, and retries on the next model in your fallback chain (up to 20 attempts). |
| - **Per-key rate tracking** β RPM, RPD, TPM, and TPD counters per `(platform, model, key)` so the router always picks a key that's under its caps. |
| - **Sticky sessions** β Multi-turn conversations keep talking to the same model for 30 minutes to avoid the hallucination spike that comes from mid-conversation model switches. |
| - **Encrypted key storage** β API keys are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before hitting SQLite; decryption happens in-memory just before a request. |
| - **Unified API key** β Clients authenticate to your proxy with a single `freellmapi-β¦` bearer token. You never expose upstream provider keys to your apps. |
| - **Health checks** β Periodic probes mark keys as `healthy`, `rate_limited`, `invalid`, or `error` so the router skips dead ones automatically. |
| - **Admin dashboard** β React + Vite UI to manage keys, reorder the fallback chain, inspect analytics, and run prompts in a playground. Dark mode included. |
| - **Analytics** β Per-request logging with latency, token counts, success rate, and per-provider breakdowns. |
| - **Runs anywhere Node 20+ runs** β Windows, macOS, Linux servers, or a small ARM SBC (Raspberry Pi included). ~40 MB RSS at idle behind PM2 / systemd / whatever supervisor you prefer. |
|
|
| ## Not yet supported |
|
|
| The scope is deliberately narrow. If a feature isn't on this list and isn't below, assume it isn't there yet. |
|
|
| - **Embeddings** (`/v1/embeddings`) |
| - **Image generation** (`/v1/images/*`) |
| - **Audio / speech** (`/v1/audio/*`) |
| - **Vision / multimodal inputs** β message content is text-only |
| - **Legacy completions** (`/v1/completions`) β only the chat endpoint is implemented |
| - **Moderation** (`/v1/moderations`) |
| - **`n > 1`** (multiple completions per request) |
| - **Per-user billing / multi-tenant auth** β single-user by design |
|
|
| PRs that add any of these are very welcome. See [Contributing](#contributing). |
|
|
| ## Quick start |
|
|
| **Prerequisites:** Node.js 20+, npm. |
|
|
| ```bash |
| git clone https://github.com/tashfeenahmed/freellmapi.git |
| cd freellmapi |
| npm install |
| |
| # Generate an encryption key for at-rest key storage |
| cp .env.example .env |
| echo "ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))")" >> .env |
| |
| # Start server + dashboard together |
| npm run dev |
| ``` |
|
|
| `ENCRYPTION_KEY` is required for startup. The server only falls back to a |
| database-stored development key when `DEV_MODE=true` and `NODE_ENV` is not |
| `production`; do not use that fallback with real provider keys. |
|
|
| Open http://localhost:5173 (the Vite dev UI), add your provider keys on the **Keys** page, reorder the **Fallback Chain** to taste, and grab your unified API key from the **Keys** page header. That unified key is what you point your OpenAI SDK at. |
|
|
| For a production build: |
|
|
| ```bash |
| npm run build |
| node server/dist/index.js # server + dashboard both served on :3001 |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## Using the API |
|
|
| Any OpenAI-compatible client works. Examples: |
|
|
| **Python** |
|
|
| ```python |
| from openai import OpenAI |
| |
| client = OpenAI( |
| base_url="http://localhost:3001/v1", |
| api_key="freellmapi-your-unified-key", |
| ) |
| |
| resp = client.chat.completions.create( |
| model="auto", # let the router pick; or specify e.g. "gemini-2.5-flash" |
| messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise the fall of Rome in one sentence."}], |
| ) |
| print(resp.choices[0].message.content) |
| print("Routed via:", resp.headers.get("x-routed-via")) |
| ``` |
|
|
| **curl** |
|
|
| ```bash |
| curl http://localhost:3001/v1/chat/completions \ |
| -H "Authorization: Bearer freellmapi-your-unified-key" \ |
| -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ |
| -d '{ |
| "model": "auto", |
| "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "hi"}] |
| }' |
| ``` |
|
|
| **Streaming** |
|
|
| ```python |
| stream = client.chat.completions.create( |
| model="auto", |
| messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Stream me a haiku about SQLite."}], |
| stream=True, |
| ) |
| for chunk in stream: |
| print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="", flush=True) |
| ``` |
|
|
| **Tool calling** |
|
|
| Pass OpenAI-style `tools` and `tool_choice`; the assistant response round-trips back through the proxy exactly like the OpenAI API. Multi-step flows (assistant `tool_calls` β `tool` role follow-up β final answer) work across every provider the router can reach. |
|
|
| ```python |
| tools = [{ |
| "type": "function", |
| "function": { |
| "name": "get_weather", |
| "description": "Get current weather for a city.", |
| "parameters": { |
| "type": "object", |
| "properties": {"city": {"type": "string"}}, |
| "required": ["city"], |
| }, |
| }, |
| }] |
| |
| # 1. Model asks for a tool call |
| first = client.chat.completions.create( |
| model="auto", |
| messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What's the weather in Karachi?"}], |
| tools=tools, |
| tool_choice="required", |
| ) |
| call = first.choices[0].message.tool_calls[0] |
| |
| # 2. You execute the tool, feed the result back |
| final = client.chat.completions.create( |
| model="auto", |
| messages=[ |
| {"role": "user", "content": "What's the weather in Karachi?"}, |
| first.choices[0].message, |
| {"role": "tool", "tool_call_id": call.id, "content": '{"temp_c": 32, "cond": "sunny"}'}, |
| ], |
| tools=tools, |
| ) |
| print(final.choices[0].message.content) |
| ``` |
|
|
| Works with `stream=True` as well β you'll get `delta.tool_calls` chunks followed by a `finish_reason: "tool_calls"` close. Under the hood, OpenAI-compatible providers (Groq, Cerebras, SambaNova, Mistral, OpenRouter, GitHub Models, HuggingFace, Cloudflare, Cohere compat) get the request passed through; Gemini requests get translated into Google's `functionDeclarations` / `functionResponse` shape and the response is translated back. |
|
|
| Every response carries an `X-Routed-Via: <platform>/<model>` header so you can see which provider actually served each call. If a request fell over between providers, you'll also see `X-Fallback-Attempts: N`. |
|
|
| ## Screenshots |
|
|
| ### Keys |
|
|
| Manage provider credentials and grab the unified API key your apps connect with. Each key shows a status dot and when it was last health-checked. |
|
|
|  |
|
|
| ### Playground |
|
|
| Send a chat completion through the router and see which provider served it, with the model ID and latency printed right on the message. |
|
|
|  |
|
|
| ### Analytics |
|
|
| Request volume, success rate, tokens in and out, average latency, and per-provider breakdowns over 24h / 7d / 30d windows. |
|
|
|  |
|
|
| ## How it works |
|
|
| ``` |
| ββββββββββββββββββββ Bearer freellmapi-β¦ βββββββββββββββββββββββββββ |
| β OpenAI SDK / β βββββββββββββββββββββββΆ β Express proxy (:3001) β |
| β curl / any β βββββββββββββββββββββββ β /v1/chat/completions β |
| β OpenAI client β streamed tokens ββββββββββββββ¬βββββββββββββ |
| ββββββββββββββββββββ β |
| βΌ |
| ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ |
| β Router β |
| β 1. Pick highest-priority model that β |
| β (a) has a healthy key and β |
| β (b) is under all its rate limits. β |
| β 2. Decrypt key, call provider SDK. β |
| β 3. On 429/5xx β cooldown + retry next model. β |
| ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ |
| β |
| ββββββββββββββββ¬βββββββββββββ¬βββββββββββ΄ββββββββββ¬ββββββββββββββ¬βββββββββββ |
| βΌ βΌ βΌ βΌ βΌ βΌ |
| Google Groq Cerebras OpenRouter HF β¦10 more |
| ``` |
|
|
| - **Router** (`server/src/services/router.ts`) β picks a model per request. |
| - **Rate-limit ledger** (`server/src/services/ratelimit.ts`) β in-memory RPM/RPD/TPM/TPD counters backed by SQLite, with cooldowns on 429s. |
| - **Provider adapters** (`server/src/providers/*.ts`) β one file per provider, implementing the `Provider` base class: `chatCompletion()` and `streamChatCompletion()`. |
| - **Health service** (`server/src/services/health.ts`) β periodic probe keeps key status fresh. |
| - **Dashboard** (`client/`) β React + Vite + shadcn/ui admin surface. |
| - **Storage** β SQLite (`better-sqlite3`) with AES-256-GCM envelope encryption for keys. |
|
|
| ## Limitations |
|
|
| Stacking free tiers has real trade-offs. Be honest with yourself about them: |
|
|
| - **No frontier models.** The free-tier catalog tops out around Llama 3.3 70B, GLM-4.5, Qwen 3 Coder, and Gemini 2.5 Pro. You will not get GPT-5 or Claude Opus class reasoning through this. For hard problems, pay for a real API. |
| - **Intelligence degrades as the day progresses.** Your top-ranked models (usually Gemini 2.5 Pro, GPT-4o via GitHub Models) have the lowest daily caps. Once they hit their limits, the router falls down your priority chain to smaller/weaker models. Expect the effective intelligence of the endpoint to drop in the late hours of each day β then reset at UTC midnight. |
| - **Latency is highly variable.** Cerebras and Groq are extremely fast; others are not. You get whichever one is available. |
| - **Free tiers can change without notice.** Providers regularly tighten, loosen, or remove free tiers. When that happens you'll see 429s or auth errors until you update the catalog. Re-seed scripts live in `server/src/scripts/`. |
| - **No SLA, by definition.** If you need reliability, use a paid provider with a contract. |
| - **Local-first.** There's no multi-tenant auth. Run this for yourself; don't expose it to the internet. |
|
|
| ## Contributing |
|
|
| Contributors very welcome! Good first PRs: |
|
|
| - **Add a provider** β copy `server/src/providers/openai-compat.ts` as a template, wire it into `server/src/providers/index.ts`, seed its models in `server/src/db/index.ts`, add a test in `server/src/__tests__/providers/`. |
| - **Add an endpoint** β embeddings, images, moderations. The provider base class can grow new methods; adapters declare which they support. |
| - **Improve the router** β cost-aware routing (cheapest-healthy-fastest tradeoffs), better latency-weighted priority, regional pinning. |
| - **Dashboard polish** β charts on the Analytics page, key rotation UX, batch import of keys from `.env`. |
| - **Docs** β more examples, client library snippets for Go/Rust/etc., a deployment recipe for Docker or Fly. |
|
|
| **Development loop:** |
|
|
| ```bash |
| npm install |
| npm run dev # server on :3001, dashboard on :5173, both with HMR |
| npm test # server vitest; also runs client tests if the workspace adds them |
| npm run build # compile server and dashboard |
| ``` |
|
|
| PRs should include a test, keep the existing test suite green, and match the `.editorconfig` / tsconfig defaults already in the repo. Issues and discussions are open. |
|
|
| ### Contributors |
|
|
| <a href="https://github.com/moaaz12-web"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/moaaz12-web.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@moaaz12-web" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/lukasulc"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/lukasulc.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@lukasulc" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/VinhPhamAI"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/VinhPhamAI.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@VinhPhamAI" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/deadc"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/deadc.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@deadc" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/zhangyu1324"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/zhangyu1324.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@zhangyu1324" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/jtbrennan-git"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/jtbrennan-git.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@jtbrennan-git" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/praveenkumarpranjal"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/praveenkumarpranjal.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@praveenkumarpranjal" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/nordbyte"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/nordbyte.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@nordbyte" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/mybropro"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/mybropro.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@mybropro" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/danscMax"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/danscMax.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@danscMax" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/jhash"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/jhash.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@jhash" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/JammyJames1234"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/JammyJames1234.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@JammyJames1234" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/Sumit4codes"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/Sumit4codes.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@Sumit4codes" /></a> |
| <a href="https://github.com/meliani"><img src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=github.com/meliani.png&w=60&h=60&fit=cover&mask=circle" width="60" alt="@meliani" /></a> |
|
|
| ## Terms of Service review |
|
|
| A self-hosted, single-user, personal-use setup was re-reviewed against each provider's ToS (May 2026). Summary: |
|
|
| | Provider | Verdict | Notes | |
| |---|---|---| |
| | Google Gemini | β οΈ Caution | March 2026 ToS narrows scope to *"professional or business purposes, not for consumer use"* β a self-hosted developer proxy is still defensible, but the clause is new. | |
| | Groq | β
Likely OK | GroqCloud Services Agreement permits Customer Application integration. | |
| | Cerebras | β
Likely OK | Permitted; explicitly forbids selling/transferring API keys. | |
| | Mistral | β
Likely OK | APIs allowed for personal/internal business use. | |
| | OpenRouter | β
Likely OK | April 2026 ToS sharpens the no-resale / no-competing-service clause; private single-user proxy still fine. | |
| | SambaNova | β οΈ Ambiguous | EULA Β§1.5(c) blocks resale and "service bureau" use; single-user with no third-party access is fine. | |
| | Cloudflare Workers AI | β οΈ Ambiguous | No anti-proxy clause; covered by general Self-Serve Subscription Agreement. | |
| | NVIDIA NIM | β οΈ Caution | Trial ToS Β§1.2 / Β§1.4: *"evaluation only, not production."* Disabled in default catalog. | |
| | GitHub Models | β οΈ Caution | Free tier explicitly scoped to *"experimentation"* and *"prototyping."* | |
| | Cohere | β Avoid | Terms Β§14 still forbids *"personal, family or household purposes."* | |
| | Zhipu (open.bigmodel.cn) | β
Likely OK | Personal/non-commercial research carve-out still in the platform docs. | |
| | Z.ai (api.z.ai) | β οΈ Caution | New row β Singapore entity (distinct from Zhipu CN). Β§III.3(l) anti-traffic-redirect clause could plausibly be read against a proxy; no explicit personal-use carve-out. | |
| | Ollama Cloud | β
Likely OK | New row β Free plan permits cloud-model access (1 concurrent, 5-hour session caps). No anti-proxy / anti-resale clauses found. *(Integration tracked in #14.)* | |
|
|
| Rules of thumb that keep most providers happy: **one account per provider**, **no reselling**, **no sharing your endpoint with other humans**, **don't hammer a free tier as a paid production backend**. This is informational, not legal advice β read each provider's ToS and make your own call. |
|
|
| Removed since the April 2026 review: Hugging Face, Moonshot, and MiniMax direct integrations were dropped from the catalog (HF β tool-call format issues; Moonshot β moved to paid only; MiniMax β superseded by the OpenRouter `minimax/minimax-m2.5:free` route). |
|
|
| ## Disclaimer |
|
|
| **This project is for personal experimentation and learning, not production.** Free tiers exist so developers can prototype against them; they aren't a stable, supported inference substrate and shouldn't be treated as one. If you build something real on top of FreeLLMAPI, swap in a paid API before you ship. Your relationship with each upstream provider is governed by the terms you accepted when you created your account β those terms still apply when the traffic is proxied through this project, and you're responsible for complying with them. |
|
|
| ## Star History |
|
|
| [](https://www.star-history.com/?repos=tashfeenahmed%2Ffreellmapi&type=date&legend=top-left) |
|
|
| ## License |
|
|
| [MIT](./LICENSE) |
|
|