Continuum AI Releases OrcaRouter and OrcaRouter Lite for Unified Model Inference

May 08, 2026
Continuum AI has introduced OrcaRouter and OrcaRouter Lite, a unified inference layer that routes across more than 200 language models with zero markup. The open-source Lite version is MIT licensed and self-hostable, while the hosted version offers adaptive routing and unified billing.

Continuum AI has released OrcaRouter and OrcaRouter Lite, announced in a press release. The unified inference layer connects over 200 frontier and open source language models with zero markup for bring-your-own-key traffic. Developers pay providers directly, while Continuum generates revenue through features such as caching, governance, and policy management.

OrcaRouter Lite is open source under the MIT license and can be self-hosted on a laptop, virtual private server, or cluster. It uses SQLite by default and does not require Postgres, Redis, or Kubernetes. The hosted OrcaRouter version offers accelerated inference, failover under 50 milliseconds, and adaptive routing that learns from live traffic.

The system provides unified billing across providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and DeepSeek. User keys remain encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Continuum is also offering free credits to AI developers and independent builders, accessible at OrcaRouter.ai, with the open source code available on GitHub.

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