Model routers and AI gateways
Profiles of model routers and AI gateways, with documented product capabilities, evaluation notes, and practical tradeoffs.
Compare products side by side
Compare deployment, pricing, model access, routing, open-source availability, and notable capabilities across published reviews.
| Field | LiteLLMBerriAI | PortkeyPalo Alto Networks | OpenRouterOpenRouter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 3.9 / 5 | 3.7 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best fit | Platform teams that want to operate their own model access layer without committing to one provider. | Large or regulated organizations that need a central control plane for AI access, governance, observability, and security. | Teams that want broad model access, managed routing, consolidated billing, and operational controls without maintaining separate provider integrations. |
| Deployment | Self-hosted and managed | Managed, VPC, private cloud, hybrid, regional, and self-hosted | Managed service |
| Pricing model | Open source with enterprise options | Free developer tier, $49/month production tier, and custom enterprise pricing | Pass-through model pricing with a 5.5% pay-as-you-go credit purchase fee and enterprise discounts |
| Model access | Broad multi-provider catalog | More than 1,600 models across hosted providers and private endpoints | More than 500 models across more than 80 providers |
| Routing capabilities | Rules, load balancing, fallback, cost and latency | Policy routing, fallbacks, retries, load balancing, traffic shaping, and regional routing | Provider routing, model selection, fallback, price, throughput, latency, data policy, session affinity, and cache-aware stickiness |
| Open source | Yes | Gateway components available | No |
| Notable capabilities | OpenAI-compatible proxy, Fallback and load balancing, Virtual keys and budgets, Guardrail integrations | Enterprise access and policy controls, Routing, retries, fallbacks, and caching, Request-level observability and audit logs, Inline guardrails and PII redaction | Large multi-provider model marketplace, Auto Router, Pareto Router, Fusion Router, and configurable fallbacks, Session affinity and cache-aware provider routing, Budgets, classifiers, guardrails, privacy policies, and observability |
| Review | Read review → | Read review → | Read review → |
Evidence note: Product fields summarize provider documentation checked on each review date. Scores reflect the published editorial rubric. Read the methodology →
Reviewed services
Product reviews based on a detailed assessment of functionality, provider documentation, and the evidence identified in each review.
LiteLLM
LiteLLM is an open-source proxy and gateway that normalizes model APIs behind an OpenAI-compatible interface. It combines broad provider support with routing, virtual keys, budgets, caching, observability, and guardrail integrations.
- Deployment
- Self-hosted and managed
- Model access
- Broad multi-provider catalog
Portkey
Prisma AIRS AI Gateway, formerly Portkey, is an enterprise AI control plane for governing access, routing, observability, security, and cost across models, MCP tools, and agents.
- Deployment
- Managed, VPC, private cloud, hybrid, regional, and self-hosted
- Model access
- More than 1,600 models across hosted providers and private endpoints
OpenRouter
OpenRouter is a managed model marketplace and gateway that combines broad model access with provider routing, model selection, unified billing, observability, governance, and privacy controls.
- Deployment
- Managed service
- Model access
- More than 500 models across more than 80 providers
Merge Gateway
Merge Gateway is an embedded AI gateway for products that need to give their customers model choice, routing, spend controls, and governance. It includes deterministic and intelligent routing alongside DLP and prompt-injection protection.
- Deployment
- Managed and embedded
- Model access
- Multiple model providers
TrustedRouter
TrustedRouter is a privacy-focused AI gateway built around an open source router project called quill-router. It attempts to implement many of the high-demand features you can find from other paid router and gateway services, but with the transparency and flexibility privacy-conscious companies expect from their software providers.
- Deployment
- Managed and self-hosted
- Model access
- Broad multi-provider catalog