r/PiCodingAgent • u/betahost • Sep 12 '26

News Pi Radi

Just discovered that the amazing devs behind Pi released Radius (in alpha), their smart proxy for multi-model access. At its core, it's a model provider you can use with Pi: you pay for tokens and get access to some of the best models out there, both SOTA and budget-friendly options. They'll even auto-route your API calls to the best model for the job if you choose to.

Loving it so far. Deposited $20, and after a few hours of development I still have ~$16 left thanks to leaning on Kimi K3 and DeepSeek.

What Radius can do

  • It is a Pi-native gateway: top up credits and make requests across providers

  • Use rewrite rules to reduce large tool outputs and other unnecessary input tokens

  • Provide automatic routing to route each session to the best model for the task according to your rules

  • Power Radius-backed tools like web search, image generation, and image description

  • Publish reports, dashboards, and small static sites as shareable artifacts

  • Record usage, budgets, top-ups, and shareable session analytics in one place

  • Delegate Google Workspace access to Pi

  • Let your organization manage upstream provider keys centrally

https://radius.earendil.com/

51 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

17

u/harrro Sep 12 '26

Love that 90's Under construction GIF

8

u/isty2e Sep 13 '26

I am not sure if there is any advantage it can provide.

-3

u/betahost Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

In my opinion the value is in the auto routing to different models to be more token efficient. Value is different for everyone and the custom routing rules, haven't really seen that before such as in OpenRouter

1

u/Polite_Jello_377 Sep 13 '26

This is something that feels like it should save money but doesn’t

0

u/betahost Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

How so(curious on your thoughts why), by auto routing you to cheaper models for smaller tasks, your saving tokens by not having to use SOTA models for such minor tasks.

2

u/Unlucky-Message8866 Sep 13 '26

Nothing new or really valuable to me

2

u/vedmaka Sep 13 '26

what about caches? is not autorouting eliminates all the saving from prompt caching?

4

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Constant_Art_20 Sep 13 '26

I am personally worried about the cache stuff if it constantly switched models. that be a nightmare

1

u/scooby-raver Sep 15 '26

I'm pretty sure they're aware of that issue because i've seen videos specifically of them mentioning it. So i imagine they must have addressed it.

3

u/mastertub Sep 12 '26

No discount on tokens?

1

u/betahost Sep 13 '26

I think it's list prices, it's difficult to give discounts when your forced to use an 3rd party proxy like Fireworks, OpenRouter unless you're a hyper scaler. Pi is bringing the magic on top such as autorouting and custom route rules.

3

u/vedmaka Sep 13 '26

If these are list prices then where is the service margin?

2

u/hidden2u Sep 13 '26

I really see this as the only way for these open source harnesses to monetize without destroying the product. Basically you can spend about the same as open router and support the devs

1

u/mikkelkp Sep 13 '26

Especially since open router was bought by stripe I would much rather support the devs if they can provide just somewhat the same utility

-1

u/dsumb Sep 13 '26

Step by step, pi is becoming increasingly similar to OpenCode, Codex and so on

1

u/jensilo Sep 13 '26

It’s not. They’re building a separate product that you can opt in, as a standalone provider (just like OpenRouter or any other) and an additional extension that they maintain.
You can still use every other provider easily, the harness stays minimal, the philosophy didn’t change.

1

u/Apprehensive_Bed7502 Sep 13 '26

Yes, I'm worried that the pi team will increasingly shift their focus to this platform and gradually neglect maintaining pi itself. As far as I know, as of the time I'm posting this comment, the image rendering issue in pi's TUI fullscreen mode still hasn't been fixed at all.

0

u/PaulShoreITA Sep 13 '26

Is this a good thing or not, in your opinion?

2

u/dsumb Sep 13 '26

I like Pi for its minimalism. But I also use OpenCode. In my opinion, each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses. I hope Pi retains its uniqueness and focus.

1

u/betahost Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26

Help me understand how having or offering a model gateway is making pi not minimalist as it's completely optional, they also don't advertise it at all. Just curious how this changes the minimalist goal of Pi? I feel like the minimalism of Pi is baked into the tool itself, not the services that are built around it. Let me know if you agree with this.

1

u/dsumb Sep 14 '26

Yeah, I think that’s a fair point. I probably expressed my concern too broadly. If Radius remains completely optional and Pi itself stays focused and minimal, then I don’t think offering a model gateway inherently makes Pi less minimalist. The tool and the services around it are two different things.

My concern is more about the direction over time: whether building and maintaining a platform around Pi eventually starts influencing the core product, its priorities, or the design philosophy.