The Complete Guide to OpenAI-Compatible APIs for Chinese LLMs

Short summary

OpenAI-compatible gateways let you swap in cheaper Chinese LLMs (DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM) without changing your code—just one base URL change. Production benchmarks show DeepSeek V4-Pro reaches 95% of GPT-4o quality at 10% cost; a fallback strategy cuts bills by 60–84%. Cost: $0.18–$2.10/1M tokens; guides provided for Python and Node.js integration.

• •Change only base_url + api_key to swap between OpenAI and Chinese LLMs
• •DeepSeek V4-Pro: 95% of GPT-4o quality at 10% cost ($0.50/$0.95 per 1M tokens)
• •70–80% Chinese models + 20–30% GPT-4o fallback saves 60–84% monthly

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.