Great comparison! This is a decision every founder building with LLMs has to make.

Our take: it depends on where you are in your journey.

Early stage / MVP: Use a router/gateway. It's faster to build with, you get access to more models, and you don't have to worry about vendor lock-in. You can start shipping in days instead of weeks.

Scaling / optimization: You might want to go direct for specific models to squeeze out better latency or custom features. But keep the gateway layer in front - you can always route to direct endpoints later.

Full enterprise: Probably a mix. Use the gateway for 80% of traffic (routine tasks), and go direct for the 20% that needs the absolute best performance or lowest latency.

We use JZS Token as our gateway. One endpoint, 40+ models, all three protocols (Chat Completions, Responses, Messages). It's saved us a ton of integration work.

The key insight: going direct sounds simpler, but once you need 3-4 different providers, the operational complexity adds up fast. A gateway pays for itself quickly.

Good article. This is a really useful decision framework.