Which is the best llm gateway in production
If you intend to deploy a multi-model setup into production, considering LLM gateways is necessary. Juggling different providers manually would become a nightmare for your budget and uptime. By handling dynamic routing, semantic caching, and automatic failovers, you could save tokens and ensure stability during runtime, and standardize your codebase. I’ve been testig a few different LLM gateways lately to see how they actually compare on these metrics.
OpenRouter
The popular go-to for a sigle API and unified billing. Its true strength is cost control, providing real-time credit tracking so you can benchmarkmodels and offload basic tasks to free open-source options. Downsides include a lack of granular enterprise budgeting and inconsistent provider quality.
LiteLLM
A solid abstraction layer for enterprise cost tracking, centralizing API keys, and handling seamless provider fallbacks. But adding it to ptroduction complicates debugging. Combined with update-breaking bugs and a recent credential-stealing supply-chain attack, its production stability is currently a red flag.
ZenMux
Excellent for rapid A/B testing. It natively supports both OpenAI and Claude protocols, allowing you to smoothly swap models without rewriting your code. They are fast at updating new models and offer limited-time free trials. The main drawback is a restrictive free tier that lacks API access.
Portkey
Solid for customer-facing setups, offering strong retry logic, precise RBAC, and virtual key management for tracking costs across 1,600+ models. However, it lacks a self-hosted option. Epect latency spikes past a few hundred RPS and limitations if you require complex dynamic routing or deep system observability.