AWS Bedrock and OpenRouter side by side
| AWS Bedrock | OpenRouter | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A managed model service inside your AWS account | A marketplace API in front of many model providers |
| Models | Claude, OpenAI GPT-6, GPT-5.x and gpt-oss, Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, Grok and others; Gemini not listed | Claude, GPT, Gemini and open models from many vendors |
| Pricing | Per token on your AWS bill, or Provisioned Throughput per model unit per hour | Pay as you go; 5.5% fee on credit purchases on Standard, 8% on Business; Enterprise by quote |
| Capacity limits | Tokens per minute per model per Region; increases are not automatic and may be denied | Routing across providers; per-account limits: not stated |
| Processing in Europe | EU geographic cross-Region profiles stay in the EU | eu.openrouter.ai on Business and Enterprise; account and billing data may be processed in the US |
| Retention and training | Inputs and outputs not used to train base models; retention mode set per Region | OpenRouter does not train on your data; provider data_collection defaults to allow; ZDR per account or per request |
| Identity | AWS IAM; short-term Bedrock API keys | SAML SSO and SCIM on Enterprise |
| Budgets | AWS Budgets alerts; budget actions can apply an IAM policy | Budgets per member and per key, set by org admins in guardrails |
| Allow-lists | IAM policies restrict which models a role can invoke | Model and provider allow-lists in guardrails |
| Audit | AWS CloudTrail records Bedrock API calls | Admin audit log: not stated |
| Contract | AWS GDPR terms; Standard Contractual Clauses in the AWS Service Terms | DPA through the Terms of Service; signed copy on request on Business |
Where they differ most
Where governance lives
On Bedrock, access, logging and spend follow your AWS account: IAM policies and CloudTrail. On OpenRouter, org admins set budgets and allow-lists in guardrails.
Catalog
OpenRouter serves Gemini and models from many vendors through one key. Gemini is not on the Bedrock model list.
Europe
Bedrock's EU cross-Region profiles keep inference in the EU. OpenRouter's in-region routing is on Business and Enterprise, fails closed rather than leaving the region, and leaves some features off the EU domain.
Choose AWS Bedrock or OpenRouter
Choose AWS Bedrock if
- All AI spend and access must sit inside your AWS account and agreement.
- Your security team already reviews IAM and CloudTrail.
- Your approved quotas cover your peak load.
Choose OpenRouter if
- You want Gemini and many other vendors behind one key.
- Pay-as-you-go credits suit your budgeting.
- Your developers want to set provider routing per request.
A third option for companies
If you want the breadth of a multi-vendor API with company controls built in, Standard Compute picks the model and provider for each step and adds the rules a security reviewer asks for.
Cost per step
Each step goes to the cheapest model that can do it and the cheapest provider fast enough to serve it.
Models
Claude, GPT and Gemini alongside open models such as GLM, DeepSeek, MiniMax and Kimi, through one API.
Processing in Europe
A Europe rule per company, team or key: every request, including retries and fallbacks, is served only by approved European inference endpoints, or refused before your prompt is sent.
Zero data retention
Required per company, team or key, and Standard Compute never trains on your prompts or outputs.
Single sign-on
Microsoft Entra ID or any SAML provider, and Claude Desktop and Claude Code sign-in with a Microsoft work account.
Budgets
A fixed monthly budget per person and app that never overruns, and spending caps per key and for the whole company.
Allow-lists
Approved providers per company, team or key, and approved models per key. Fallbacks never route around them.
Audit log
Admin changes with before and after values, and a 12-month export of every request's model, provider and region rule.
Sign our Data Processing Agreement in the dashboard, and see every sub-processor with its purpose and location.
Create a company workspaceor write to contact@standardcompute.com
Questions
Does OpenRouter train on our data?
OpenRouter says it does not train on your data. Its provider data_collection setting defaults to allow, so you choose whether providers that may collect data are used.
Does OpenRouter have SSO?
OpenRouter says SAML SSO and SCIM are available on Enterprise plans.
Can Bedrock or OpenRouter keep processing in Europe?
Bedrock's EU geographic cross-Region profiles keep inference within the EU. OpenRouter's EU domain keeps inference on European endpoints on Business and Enterprise, and says account and billing data may be processed in the US.
Is there an option with company controls and many models?
Standard Compute is one API for Claude, GPT, Gemini and open models, with a Europe rule, zero data retention, Microsoft Entra sign-in, budgets per key and for the company, allow-lists and an audit log.
Sources (checked 9 November 2026)
- Amazon Bedrock model cardsdocs.aws.amazon.com
- Bedrock runtime quotasdocs.aws.amazon.com
- Bedrock quotasdocs.aws.amazon.com
- Bedrock cross-Region inferencedocs.aws.amazon.com
- Bedrock data retentiondocs.aws.amazon.com
- Amazon Bedrock FAQsaws.amazon.com
- Bedrock identity-based policy examplesdocs.aws.amazon.com
- Bedrock API calls in CloudTraildocs.aws.amazon.com
- AWS budget actionsdocs.aws.amazon.com
- AWS GDPR Centeraws.amazon.com
- OpenRouter pricingopenrouter.ai
- OpenRouter in-region routingopenrouter.ai
- OpenRouter provider routingopenrouter.ai
- OpenRouter zero data retentionopenrouter.ai
- OpenRouter guardrailsopenrouter.ai