Alex Atallah's CAP Theorem for Inference Providers: Reliability, Cost, Speed
AccBalanced · x · 2026-10-20
Alex Atallah (OpenRouter co-founder) proposes a "CAP theorem for inference providers": reliability, cost, and speed form a triangle where any provider can optimize at most two of the three.
The framing gives users a quick lens for picking LLM APIs — the cheapest-and-fastest providers tend to sacrifice stability, while reliable-and-cheap options give up speed, and so on.
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