Claude Code (CC) is brilliant revolutionary tool, but it’s a walled garden - it is locked to Anthropic’s API. You are forced to use Anthropic’s models, at Anthropic’s prices, with Anthropic’s context limits.
What if you want to use the massive 1M token context of Gemini 2.5 Pro? What if you want to run simple background tasks on a free, local model using Ollama? What if you need the specific reasoning style of DeepSeek? You shouldn't have to choose between a great coding assistant and your preferred AI infrastructure.
Enter Claude Code Router (CCR) — the
open-source AI Gateway
that liberates your Claude Code workflow. Claude Code Router sits between your CC and the outside world. It intercepts API requests, then intelligently routes, transforms, and proxies them to dozens of other providers you configure in CCR.
How it Works: The Protocol Translator
The magic of CCR lies in its ability to perform Protocol Transformation. Claude Code expects to talk to an Anthropic-formatted API. Most other providers use the OpenAI-style format. CCR sits in the middle, translating messages on the fly.
Compelling Use-Cases For CCR
1. The Router That Helps You Use Right Tool for Your Job
Why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut? CCR lets you define a router that matches tasks to the perfect model.
- Simple edits & background tasks (/background) → Route to a lightning-fast, cheap model like DeepSeek Chat.
- Complex architecture & planning (/think) → Route to a powerful reasoning model like DeepSeek Reasoner or GPT-5.
- Giant codebase analysis (/longContext) → Automatically switch to Gemini 2.5 Pro (1M token context) when a request exceeds 60k tokens.
- Web search (/webSearch) → Route to models that support live web results.
2. Cost Optimization via Local Models (Ollama)
Are you tired of paying per API call for every little "fix my typo" request? Install Ollama, pull a model like qwen2.5-coder, and route all background noise to your local GPU. The result? Zero cost for routine tasks, and you only pay for premium API calls when you truly need them.
3. Dynamic Switching Without Restarting
Inside your live Claude Code session, just type: `
/model openrouter,anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet
`. And just like that, the model powering your session changes. No restarting the CLI, no losing context
Is it production ready?
The project has 32,400+ stars on GitHub, an active Chinese community maintaining it and it seem to be sponsored by Z.ai.
If you were to install CCR on the same host as CC, using an npm install method as suggested in its Github page, things are straightforward and get you working.
This router doesn't work if containerized, as there is a bug in the way it is coded for security. I had raised an issue on this in Github and it still is in open status. I made my recommendations on the changes and wanted to know what the author thinks about it, before I can possibly work on fixing it and send a PR.
The inability of the tool to become inaccessible when containerized, makes it unusable for my workflow and thus to me is Not Production Ready, as yet.