So I coded a bot that uses OpenAI API and it runs great, but the 3 months expired and I no longer have a key. The usage was very minimal, in 3 months I used like 2$ worth of queries.

So are there any good free AI APIs out there at the moment? It is on a small raspberry pi so running it locally is out of the question.

I am a designer and a small frontend developer. The OpenAI API makes it extremely easy for me to build AI functionality into apps, although I only have a very basic understanding of AI. Though of course I can't make any deep changes, I am even able to fine tune models and adapt them for my intended use.

Now I was wondering if there is anything comparable on the market at the moment. I know of Meta's LLaMA, but you can only use it locally, which makes it harder to easily implement into applications. Also, you are not allowed to use it for commercial purposes.

I haven't found much from Google or other tech companies. Does OpenAI have a monopoly here or are there alternatives worth mentioning that could be used?

Hi Guys,

let's grow this thread.

Here we should accumulate all good and recommend options and the thread should serve as a reliable source for getting surprising good FREE API Options shown.

I'll start!:

I recommend using the Openrouter API Key with the unlimited and not rate limited Deepseek/Deepseek R1 0528 - free model.

It's intelligent, strong reasoning and it's good at coding but sometimes it sucks a bit.
I Roocode there is a High Reasoning mode maybe it makes things better.

In Windsurf you can use SWE-1 for free which is a good and reliable option for tool use and coding but it misses something apart from the big guns.

In TRAE you can get nearly unlimited access to Claude 4 Sonnet and other Highend Models for just 3$ a month! Thats my option right now.

And... there is a tool which can import your OpenAI-Session Cookie and can work as a local reverse proxy to make the requests from your Plus Subscription work as API request in your Coding IDE ..thats sick right?

Pluely is Your Invisible AI Assistant: Lightning-fast, privacy-first AI assistant that works seamlessly during meetings, interviews, and conversations without anyone knowing. Completely undetectable in video calls, screen shares, and recordings. All your data is stored locally on your system. Pluely is designed with privacy as a priority, so no external calls are made to our servers. This applies to both free and Pro users.

By far pluely is the best invisible open-source ai assistant, compared to big firms those have funding.

all with: solo contribution, $0 funding, and endless nights.

Menu you need on your desktop:

• System audio capture

• Microphone audio capture

• Input for all your queries

• Screenshots (auto/manual)

• Attach images

• History

• Settings

On free plan: Pluely supports all major LLM providers just bring your own api key, you can also add your own custom providers with cURL commands, same for speech to text providers as well.

On Pro plan: Pluely now has 80+ premium AI models with instant access including with GPT-5 and many other openai models, One-click model switching, Advanced speech-to-text with highest accuracy

Downloads: https://pluely.com/downloads

Website: https://pluely.com

GitHub: https://github.com/iamsrikanthnani/pluely

Just watched a bunch of Youtube videos about OpenAI's Operator - it looks surprisingly cool. But I don't want to pay 200 bucks just to try it out. Is there any free/open-sourced version of it on the market? Are they reliable?

So I was lately researching about for any open source alternatives for ChatGPT Operator and found 2 repos which are pretty exciting:

Browser-Use: It is a lightweight Python tool that helps AI agents interact with web browsers. It uses Playwright to automate tasks like web browsing, data extraction, and form submissions. Their integration with LLMs make it smarter and help them to make smarter decisions while browsing. This project also includes a simple web interface built with Gradio, making it very easy to test.

Repo Link: https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use

Open Operator: This is also an open-source framework designed to give AI agents the ability to handle real-world computer tasks like coding, data management, and web interactions. It supports environments like WebArena for online automation and OSWorld for system-level tasks, making it a powerful tool for building general-purpose AI Agents.

Repo Link: https://github.com/browserbase/open-operator