Playground
Try OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and 200+ other models directly in the OrcaRouter playground. No credit card required; sign in to save sessions, compare models side-by-side, and inspect the routing decision and per-token cost for every request.
What you can do
- Send a prompt to any of 200+ frontier and open-weights models without writing any code or installing an SDK.
- Switch model in one click to compare outputs without rewriting the prompt.
- See the live token cost, latency, and chosen upstream provider for every request.
- Save sessions, share links, and export conversations as JSON, Markdown, or OpenAI-compatible request payloads.
When to use the playground
The playground is the fastest path from "I read about a new model" to "I have a feel for whether it solves my problem". Useful for prompt iteration before you wire a model into a production application, for spec-style A/B comparisons across vendors, and for confirming that a given model handles your domain (long documents, code, multilingual, etc.) before you commit to integration work.
How model routing works
Leave the model set to Auto and the OrcaRouter routing engine classifies your prompt, scores every candidate model on price, quality and live latency, and picks the cheapest model that clears the quality bar — you see the picked model on every reply. Prefer full control? Choose any specific model from the model catalog, or watch two models race the same prompt on the leaderboard's Battle Mode. Per-model pricing for everything you try here is listed on the pricing page.
Playground FAQ
Is the AI playground free to use?
Yes. You can browse every model and set up prompts without an account, and when guest mode is enabled you get a small number of free messages per day. Signing up unlocks every model with pay-as-you-go pricing at provider cost — no credit card required.
Which AI models can I test in the playground?
200+ models across OpenAI (GPT-5, GPT-4o), Anthropic (Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet), Google (Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash), DeepSeek, Llama and more — the same curated catalog the OrcaRouter API serves, including image and video generation models.
Do I need an API key to try it?
No key is needed to browse models or, when guest mode is on, to send your first free messages. To send unlimited messages, compare models side by side, or attach images, sign in and the playground uses one of your API keys automatically.
Can I compare two AI models on the same prompt?
Yes — Compare mode fans one prompt out to up to three models side by side, streaming each answer with its own latency and token counts, so you can judge quality and cost before committing to a model in code.
Is the API OpenAI-compatible?
Yes. Everything you do in the playground maps to a standard OpenAI-compatible request — swap your base URL to api.orcarouter.ai/v1 and keep your existing SDK. The playground can show you the exact request payload for any conversation.