Anthropic MCP vs OpenRouter

FeatureAnthropic MCPOpenRouter
CategoryAI DevelopmentAI Development
PricingFree (open standard)Pay-per-use (varies by model)
GitHub Stars45,000—
PlatformsmacOS, Linux, WindowsWeb
Features
  • ✓ Universal tool protocol
  • ✓ Server/client architecture
  • ✓ Stdio and SSE transport
  • ✓ TypeScript + Python SDKs
  • ✓ Growing ecosystem
  • ✓ 200+ models
  • ✓ Unified API
  • ✓ Auto-fallback
  • ✓ Rate limiting
  • ✓ Usage tracking
  • ✓ OpenAI-compatible
Tags
open-sourceprotocoltoolsintegrationstandard
apimulti-modelgatewayroutingpay-per-use