AI · 1h ago
OpenRouter data shows top 5 AI models by usage are all Chinese or open-weight
A developer tracked OpenRouter's daily usage rankings for a month, finding that the top five models by token volume are Chinese or open-weight, led by DeepSeek V4 Flash. The price gap is stark: DeepSeek costs $0.09/MTok vs. Claude Opus at $5/MTok, driving developers toward cheaper alternatives for bulk workloads. The data excludes first-party traffic like ChatGPT, so it reflects developer choice in a neutral marketplace, not overall AI adoption.
Meridian48 take
The rankings underscore a shift in production AI: cost efficiency now trumps benchmark bragging rights, challenging US dominance in the developer API market.
Read the full reporting
I tracked which AI models people actually use for a month. The top 5 are all Chinese or open-weight. →
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