Pollinations

Pollinations

Pollinations is an open-source generative AI platform that exposes text, image, audio and video models through one API, with OpenAI-compatible endpoints so existing client code mostly just works. The site reports 10K weekly active developers, 1.5 million daily requests and more than 500 live apps built on it. Beyond generation, Pollinations covers vision, search and embeddings, streaming, tool calls and structured output, and ships a polli CLI that produces JSON output, reads stdin and includes a SKILL.md so Claude Code, Cursor or Codex can drive it. Usage runs on Pollen credits: developers earn free Pollen through Quests for prototypes, and in production end users sign in and spend from their own wallet, with the app owner able to take a share. Recent changelog entries as of 2026 include DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, 1080p MiniMax video, fallback model chains and managed code agents over MCP. The stack is forkable on GitHub and run by Myceli AI OÜ.

Production credibility: Open-source repository on GitHub; site states 10K weekly active developers, 1.5M daily requests and 500+ live apps; operated by Myceli AI OÜ; changelog dated within days of capture; no disclosed venture funding as of September 2026.

Key Features

• Single API for text, image, video and audio generation plus vision, search and embeddings
• OpenAI-compatible endpoints with streaming, tool use and structured output
• polli CLI for humans and agents: --json output, stdin context, clear exit codes and a shipped SKILL.md
• Pollen credit economy: free Pollen from Quests, user-owned wallets with spending caps, optional revenue share for app builders
• Fallback model chains by passing up to four comma-separated models on any generation endpoint
• Managed code agents with a private persistent workspace, Bash and repo push via an MCP computer endpoint
• Media inputs: upload images, audio or documents and get a URL to use in model calls
• Roadmap items on the site: drop-in login, app hosting, app discovery and an optional ads SDK

Ideal Use Case

An indie developer or hackathon team building a chat, image or video app who wants one key, one bill and a model catalogue that keeps updating, without wiring five vendor SDKs. Pollinations also fits agent builders who want a CLI their coding assistant can call. Choose it over a direct OpenAI or Replicate integration when you want users to bring their own credits and you want to fork the infrastructure if needed.

How Pollinations differentiates

Two things set Pollinations apart from other model gateways in 2026: the code is open source and forkable, and the billing model pushes spend to end-user wallets so an app can run without the developer fronting inference costs. The agent-first CLI and MCP computer endpoint make it unusually easy for an AI coding assistant to generate assets or run managed agents. Fallback chains handle provider outages in one query parameter. The trade-offs: Pollen is a proprietary credit unit, Quests-earned credits are meant for prototyping rather than production volume, and as a community-run gateway it offers no enterprise SLA or data-processing agreement of the kind larger vendors sign.

FAQ

Q: Is Pollinations really free? A: Developers get free Pollen credits through Quests for prototypes and testing; production usage is paid from end-user wallets or purchased Pollen, so the free tier is for building, not for high volume.

Q: Is the Pollinations API compatible with OpenAI clients? A: Yes. The site lists OpenAI-compatible endpoints with streaming, tools and structured output, so most OpenAI SDK code can point at Pollinations with a base-URL change.

Q: Which modalities does Pollinations support? A: Text, image, video and audio generation plus vision, search and embeddings; recent additions include DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and 1080p MiniMax video clips of 5, 10 or 15 seconds.

Q: How does Pollinations compare to OpenRouter? A: OpenRouter is a closed, text-focused router billed to the developer; Pollinations is open source, adds image, audio and video, and lets end users pay from their own wallet. OpenRouter has the deeper text-model catalogue; Pollinations suits multimodal apps and forkable infrastructure.

Q: Can AI coding agents use Pollinations directly? A: Yes. The polli CLI ships a SKILL.md for Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, and the MCP computer endpoint gives agents a persistent workspace with Bash and repo push.

tl;dr

Pollinations is an open-source, OpenAI-compatible gateway for text, image, audio and video with an agent-ready CLI and a user-pays credit model. Great for indie and agent builders; no enterprise SLA.