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Reliability & Infra

Automatic Provider Failover vs Manual Client Retries

How a circuit breaker with provider fallback compares with retrying failed AI calls in your own client code.

Side by side

Circuit Breaker + Fallback vs Manual Client Retries

Option A

Circuit Breaker + Fallback

The platform tracks errors per provider. After repeated failures the circuit opens and traffic goes to a backup model; it is tested again later before traffic returns.

Strengths

  • Stops hammering a failing provider
  • Backup model keeps features working
  • No client changes needed
Option B

Manual Client Retries

Your code catches errors and retries the same provider, usually with exponential backoff.

Strengths

  • Simple to add
  • Handles brief network blips

Why retries alone are not enough

Retrying the same provider during an outage just waits longer before failing, and during rate limiting it can make things worse. A circuit breaker notices the pattern and switches to another provider until the first one recovers.

  • Timeout of 15 to 30 seconds for generation endpoints.
  • Retry 429 responses after the Retry-After delay.
  • Retry network errors once or twice with exponential backoff and jitter.

Frequently asked questions

Am I charged when a provider fails?
No. Credits are only reserved during the call and are released if the request fails.

Test it on your own data

Free plan with 100 credits/month + 1,000 bonus credits when you sign in before 23 Nov. One API key for every endpoint, with automatic provider fallback.

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