Top 5 LLM Gateways in 2025

Published: 1 week ago (December 11, 2025 at 02:43 PM EST)

4 min read

Source: Dev.to

LLM gateways have become essential infrastructure for production AI applications in 2025. This guide examines the top 5 solutions, highlighting performance, feature sets, and ideal use‑cases.

Bifrost (Maxim AI)

Bifrost is the fastest LLM gateway built specifically for production scale. Developed in Go, it tackles the performance bottleneck that many teams encounter when moving from prototyping to handling thousands of requests per second.

Performance

Mean overhead: 11 µs at 5,000 RPS on a t3.xlarge instance.
Approximately 50× faster than many Python‑based alternatives.

Deployment

Zero‑config deployment via Docker or npx.
Operational in under 30 seconds; dynamic provider discovery based on API keys.

Key Enterprise Capabilities

Unified Provider Access – Supports 12+ providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI, Cohere, Mistral AI, Ollama, Groq, etc.) through a single OpenAI‑compatible interface.
Automatic Fallbacks & Load Balancing – Weighted key selection and adaptive load balancing maintain stability during throttling or outages.
Semantic Caching – Embedding‑based similarity matching can yield up to 95 % cost savings for repetitive prompts.
Budget Management & Governance – Hierarchical cost controls, virtual keys, team‑level budgets, and per‑customer spending limits.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) – Enables external tool usage (filesystem, web search, database queries) for sophisticated agentic workflows.
Custom Plugins – Extensible middleware for analytics, monitoring, or business logic.
AI Quality Platform Integration – Simulate agent behavior, evaluate custom metrics, and monitor production within a unified platform.

Best For: Teams requiring ultra‑low latency, zero‑config deployment, enterprise‑grade features, and integration with comprehensive AI quality tooling.

LiteLLM

LiteLLM is a widely adopted open‑source LLM gateway that offers a versatile platform for accessing 100+ LLMs through a consistent interface. It provides both a proxy server and a Python SDK.

Provider Support

OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Vertex AI, NVIDIA, HuggingFace, Azure OpenAI, Ollama, OpenRouter, and many others.

Core Features

Unified Output Format – Standardizes responses to OpenAI‑style formatting.
Cost Tracking – Built‑in usage analytics and cost tracking across models and providers.
Virtual Keys – Secure API key management for team deployments without exposing provider credentials.

Operational Considerations

Reports of gradual performance degradation at scale.
Requires worker recycling (e.g., max_requests_before_restart=10000) to mitigate memory leaks.
Operational overhead may be higher for long‑running production services.

Best For: Teams experimenting with multiple providers, developers comfortable with Python, and applications where occasional operational overhead is acceptable.

Portkey AI Gateway

Portkey positions itself as a comprehensive platform for teams needing detailed routing control and enterprise‑grade security. It sits atop Portkey’s observability tool and supports interaction with 250+ AI models.

Security & Routing

Virtual Key Management – Role‑based access controls and audit trails for API keys.
Configurable Routing – Automatic retries, exponential backoff, and fallbacks for reliability.
Prompt Management – Versioning and testing tools streamline prompt optimization.
Advanced Guardrails – Enforce content policies and output controls for compliance.

Observability

Captures every request with full traceability (LLM calls → downstream actions, errors, latencies).
Provides detailed analytics, custom metadata tagging, and alerting.

Enterprise Features

Compliance controls, comprehensive audit trails, SSO support, and detailed access logs.

Best For: Development teams needing granular routing logic, enterprises with strict compliance requirements, and organizations prioritizing deep observability.

Helicone AI Gateway

Helicone distinguishes itself through exceptional performance, being one of the few LLM routers written in Rust.

Performance Highlights

P50 latency: 8 ms.
Horizontal scalability across cloud and on‑prem environments.

Architecture Benefits

Single binary deployment simplifies infrastructure management on AWS, GCP, Azure, or on‑premises.
Rust’s low‑level efficiency provides a significant speed advantage over Python or Node.js alternatives.

Best For: Applications demanding ultra‑fast routing with minimal latency and straightforward deployment.

OpenRouter

OpenRouter offers a managed infrastructure that simplifies multi‑model access, providing a unified API for a broad set of providers. It focuses on ease of use and developer experience, making it suitable for teams that prioritize rapid integration over deep customizability.

Key Points

Managed service with automatic scaling.
Supports a wide variety of models through a single endpoint.
Emphasizes straightforward onboarding and minimal operational overhead.

Best For: Teams looking for a hassle‑free, managed solution to access multiple LLMs without handling self‑hosted gateway infrastructure.