Free gpt-oss-20b and Gemma 4 26B on OpenRouter

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-06-16 · Open on X

Topics: LLM Fundamentals, LLMOps, Deployment & Monitoring · Level: beginner

Summary

OpenRouter added free capacity for two open-weight models, gpt-oss-20b and Gemma 4 26B. The capacity is served by Eigen Labs' Darkbloom. You can try these models at no cost through OpenRouter's single API.

Key points

• gpt-oss-20b (OpenAI's open-weight model) is available free on OpenRouter.
• Gemma 4 26B (Google) is available free on OpenRouter.
• The free capacity is provided by Eigen Labs' Darkbloom inference.
• OpenRouter gives one OpenAI-compatible API for many models, so you can swap models easily.

Resources mentioned

• OpenRouter · tool · openrouter.ai · free
  A single OpenAI-compatible API that routes requests to hundreds of models from many providers, with one bill and model fallbacks.
  Also in: Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), The Jev model is now on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Kev-4B model, an alternative to Jev, now available on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Space Bunny Alpha: stealth 1M-context flash model on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 42 more
• Eigen Labs · person · x.com · check price
  Company whose Darkbloom infrastructure serves the free model capacity on OpenRouter.
• Darkbloom · tool · darkbloom.dev · paid
  Eigen Labs' inference service that provides the free model capacity on OpenRouter.
• gpt-oss-20b · tool · huggingface.co · free
  OpenAI's 20B-parameter open-weight language model.
• Gemma 4 26B · tool · ai.google.dev · free
  Mid-sized multimodal open model in Google's Gemma 4 family.
  Also in: Local Prompt-to-Image Pipeline: ComfyUI + LM Studio Gemma + Z-Image Turbo (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Gemma 4 26B for OCR in LM Studio (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)

Try this

• Try gpt-oss-20b and Gemma 4 26B for free through OpenRouter.