For a while I had two LLM setups. One key wired into my coding agent (Claude Code, Cline). A different key, different provider, for the character-chat client I mess with on weekends. Two dashboards, two top-ups, two model lists to keep straight.
That split is everywhere in this space, and once you notice it you can't unsee it.
Every AI gateway picks one lane
Look at the OpenAI-compatible gateways and they sort cleanly into two camps:
Developer gateways - MegaLLM, Portkey, LiteLLM, OpenRouter. The pitch is reliability, failover, cost, analytics. They are headless: you get an API, you bring your own interface. Great for shipping code, nothing to actually use without building a client first.
