// ranked · November 2026
Best Free LLM APIs
Models with a free listing on OpenRouter, ranked by LiveBench overall score of the underlying model where one is published. Free tiers carry tighter rate limits than paid ones.
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL leads on LiveBench overall at 50.2, ahead of Gemma 4 31B (38.7).
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Gemma 4 31B, head to headTop 10
| # | Model | Overall score | Blended / 1M | Context | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL nvidia/nemotron-3.5-super-vl:free | 50.2 | Free | 1.0M | reasoningtoolsvision |
| 2 | Gemma 4 31B google/gemma-4-31b-it:free | 38.7 | Free | 262K | reasoningtoolsvision |
| 3 | Crouton Alpha stealth/crouton-alpha | Not evaluated | Free | 1.0M | reasoningtoolsvision |
| 4 | Lyria 3 Pro Preview google/lyria-3-pro-preview | Not evaluated | Free | 1.0M | vision |
| 5 | Lyria 3 Clip Preview google/lyria-3-clip-preview | Not evaluated | Free | 1.0M | vision |
| 6 | Dots3-Note Preview (free) dots-studio/dots-3-note-preview:free | Not evaluated | Free | 512K | reasoningtoolsvision |
| 7 | LFM3-1.7B liquid/lfm-3-1.7b:free | Not evaluated | Free | 262K | reasoningtools |
| 8 | Flint (free) recursive/flint-v1.0:free | Not evaluated | Free | 262K | reasoningtools |
| 9 | Xing4.0 29B A4B (free) xingchen-agi/xing4.0-29b-a4b:free | Not evaluated | Free | 262K | reasoningtools |
| 10 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free | Not evaluated | Free | 262K | reasoningtools |
5 more models qualify — see the full leaderboard.
FAQ
What is the best free LLM API in November 2026?
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL leads on LiveBench overall at 50.2, ahead of Gemma 4 31B (38.7).
How is this ranking produced?
Models with a free listing on OpenRouter, ranked by LiveBench overall score of the underlying model where one is published. Free tiers carry tighter rate limits than paid ones.
Other rankings
How this ranking is produced
- One metric, stated above — nothing here is weighted or scored by us. Scores come from LiveBench release 2026-10-25; models without a published run don't appear in score-based rankings.
- Price, context and capabilities — live from OpenRouter, refreshed every 15 minutes.
- Ties — scores less than a point apart are called a tie; effort settings alone move a LiveBench score by more than that.
A public benchmark is someone else's workload. Before committing, see LLM & agent evaluation.