LiteLLM is the default choice for a lot of teams. It is free, open-source, supports over 100 providers behind a single OpenAI-compatible format, and the community behind it is massive. It works great for routing API calls and tracking costs across multiple AI providers.
But LiteLLM also leaves gaps. Role-based access control, budget enforcement, MCP governance, and tool-level policy are things you build around it, not things it ships with. When those gaps become blockers and your team needs more structure, here are six alternatives worth evaluating.
TrueFoundry: Governance first
TrueFoundry AI Gateway is the strongest pick if what you actually need is governance. RBAC scoped to teams and users is built in, not bolted on. Budgets support an audit-first rollout where you see spending before turning on hard blocking. PII detection, prompt-injection guardrails, and content-moderation rules ship as first-class features from day one.
It also includes a native MCP Gateway with proper inbound and outbound authentication, per-tool approval gates for destructive actions, and Cedar or OPA-based policy enforcement. LiteLLM has no equivalent to any of this. TrueFoundry deploys as managed, hybrid, or fully self-hosted in your own VPC, so data never leaves your control. The downside is cost and vendor dependency. It is not free, and you are trusting a company roadmap.
Portkey: Open-source governance
Portkey went fully open-source under Apache 2.0 in March 2026. The company reported processing over a trillion tokens per day through the hosted product. Self-hosters now get the full feature set for free circuit breakers, usage policies, an MCP gateway with OAuth 2.1, and the complete model catalog. No license key required.
One important caveat: Palo Alto Networks announced intent to acquire Portkey in April 2026 with the deal expected to close around July 2026. That is not disqualifying today, but it is a real question mark if you are betting on the open-source trajectory continuing unchanged.
Bifrost: Raw speed
Bifrost is a Go-based open-source gateway from Maxim AI that targets raw performance. Its published benchmarks claim 50 times faster throughput than LiteLLM with under 100 microseconds of overhead at 5,000 requests per second. Those numbers are Bifrost own, not independently verified, so test against your actual traffic before relying on them. If your bottleneck is throughput at extreme request volume, Bifrost is worth a look. If not, you are adopting Go infrastructure for a performance margin you may never notice.
Ecosystem gateways: Cloudflare, Kong, and Vercel
Cloudflare AI Gateway is free on every plan and runs on Cloudflare edge network with caching, retries, model fallback, and analytics. Zero setup if you already use Cloudflare. No built-in RBAC or policy-as-code. Fine for routing, not for governance.
Kong AI Gateway adds AI routing as a plugin on Kong existing API gateway. Less new infrastructure to stand up, but also less purpose-built for AI traffic. No latency-based routing, no cost-aware fallback, no guardrails.
Vercel AI Gateway gives you one endpoint with zero markup on tokens if you already use the Vercel AI SDK. Routing and spend visibility only. No team-level RBAC, budget enforcement, or MCP governance. Great for small teams, not built for company-wide policy.
How to choose
Every option above solves for something LiteLLM specifically does not prioritise. None is a strict upgrade across every dimension. If you need governance you do not want to assemble yourself, TrueFoundry leads. If you want open-source governance with an acquisition caveat, Portkey is strong. If raw throughput is your problem, Bifrost. If you just want routing and caching without more infrastructure, the ecosystem plays may already fit your stack. The key is knowing which gap pushed you to look at alternatives. Each answer points to a different tool. The best gateway is the one that solves the problem you actually have, not the one with the most features on paper.