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9router is a local OpenAI-compatible gateway that sits between your coding tools and dozens of AI providers. You install it once with npm, point Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Cline or similar clients at http://localhost:20128/v1, and let a three-tier fallback chain keep requests moving when a subscription quota or rate limit runs out.

The product site (9router.com) and 9router npm package describe the same flow: connect providers with OAuth or API keys, then route chat, embeddings, speech, image, video, web search and web fetch through one endpoint. The public pitch lists 60+ providers and nine service kinds. Package metadata on the npm registry currently shows version 0.5.104.

9router npm install and first start

Global install is two commands on the product site:

npm install -g 9router
9router

The site says the dashboard opens automatically after install, the local server listens on localhost:20128, and the OpenAI-compatible base URL for tools is http://localhost:20128/v1. You add providers from the dashboard (OAuth, API key, or the site's listed auth methods), then point each CLI or IDE at that base URL using the tool's own provider settings.

Three-tier fallback

9Router's routing story is a fixed priority ladder, not a single cloud catalog:

Tier Role (per product site) Examples named on the site
1 · Subscription Prefer paid IDE/CLI quotas first Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Copilot
2 · Cheap Lower-cost API providers when tier 1 is exhausted GLM, MiniMax, Kimi (prices shown on the marketing page as illustrative)
3 · FREE Unmetered or free backends as last resort iFlow, Qwen, Kiro, OpenCode free

When a quota hits the limit, the gateway is supposed to fall through automatically. The site also advertises combos (virtual providers with sticky round-robin), multi-account rotation, format translation across OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini shapes, Cloudflare tunnel for remote access, proxy pools, and an MITM bridge that intercepts Antigravity / Copilot / Kiro IDE traffic. Treat those as vendor claims; each tool's own terms still apply when you intercept an IDE subscription.

9router Claude Code, Codex and Cursor setup

The integrations section lists Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, Cline, OpenClaw and several IDE intercept targets. Setup is the same pattern for OpenAI-compatible clients: set the base URL to the local /v1 endpoint and use whatever key the dashboard expects for that provider mapping. Per-tool guides are linked from the product site rather than pasted as one universal config file.

→ App ranking: Claude Code on AI Rank — OpenRouter tokens and requests

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Token savers shipped with the router

Two built-in modes are marketed for cutting token spend without changing the answer:

  • RTK — compresses tool results (diffs, grep, tree listings and similar) before they reach the model; site claims about 20–40% savings and says it is on by default.
  • Caveman Mode — injects a terse system prompt so replies stay technical but shorter; site claims up to about 65% with five intensity levels.

Those percentages come from the vendor page, not from an independent measurement on this article.

9router OpenRouter comparison

People often compare 9router with OpenRouter because both speak OpenAI-compatible APIs and fan out to many models. The shapes differ:

9Router OpenRouter
Where it runs Local process on your machine (localhost:20128) Hosted API gateway
Primary job (vendor framing) Pool your existing CLI/IDE subscriptions, then cheap/free backends Pay-as-you-go access to a large model catalog
Fallback Explicit 3-tier ladder on the product site Provider routing inside OpenRouter's cloud
Auth Your OAuth sessions and API keys in a local dashboard OpenRouter API key
Billing Uses the quotas and keys you already bought; site markets a free tier path Token billing on OpenRouter

9Router is closer to a personal failover proxy for coding agents. OpenRouter is a cloud marketplace. You can use both: some workflows put OpenRouter itself behind a local router as one of the backends.

Limits and common pitfalls

  • Subscription intercept features (Copilot, Antigravity, Kiro) can conflict with a vendor's terms of use. The product site flags that you should mind each tool's policy.
  • Localhost-only by default; remote use depends on the tunnel/proxy features you enable and how you expose the port.
  • Provider lists, illustrative dollar prices on the marketing page, and “60+ providers” counts change. Prefer the live dashboard over a blog post.
  • npm package name is 9router; confirm you are installing that name and not a look-alike.

FAQ

Does 9router replace Claude Code or Cursor? No. It is a local endpoint those tools call. You still run the original CLI or IDE.

Is it open source? The marketing page says open source under MIT. The GitHub project linked from the ecosystem is decolua/9router; treat the repo and the npm package as the places to verify license text.

Do I need a credit card for the free tier path? The site says a free tier is available with no credit card. That claim is about 9Router's own free-provider path, not about every upstream subscription you attach.

Sources

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Prepared with automated editorial assistance and checked against official sources on October 22, 2026. We did not run our own benchmarks for this article.