---
title: "Liutong"
description: "Fast, affordable LLM inference with a fully OpenAI-compatible API"
---

Liutong is a high-performance inference platform that delivers state-of-the-art language models at a fraction of the cost. Built on a custom **Rust-based inference engine** inspired by vllm and sglang, Liutong offers blazing-fast token generation with full OpenAI API compatibility.

## Why Liutong?

- **Affordable inference** — Self-hosted infrastructure keeps costs dramatically lower than commercial API providers, with OpenAI fallback for guaranteed availability.
- **OpenAI-compatible** — Drop-in replacement for the OpenAI API. Use the same SDKs, the same code, the same workflows.
- **Purpose-built models** — Four model families covering chat, reasoning, media generation, and embeddings.
- **Rust performance** — Our inference engine is written in Rust for maximum throughput and minimal latency.

## Models

| Model | Category | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| `crimson-falcon-4` | Chat | General-purpose text generation and conversation |
| `indigo-owl-4` | Reasoning | Complex reasoning, math, and multi-step problem solving |
| `amber-phoenix-4` | Media | Image and video generation |
| `jade-mole-4` | Embeddings | Text embeddings for search and retrieval |

## Quick Example

```python
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.liutong.llby.org/v1",
    api_key="lt_your_api_key",
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="crimson-falcon-4",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)
```

Ready to get started? Head to the [Quickstart guide](/docs/getting-started/quickstart).