Bifrost vs LiteLLM
Updated March 10, 2026
Overview
High-performance open-source LLM gateway written in Go. Handles ~10k RPS with <10ms latency.
LiteLLM is an open-source LLM proxy that translates OpenAI-format API calls to 100+ LLM providers. It provides a standardized interface for calling models from Anthropic, Google, Azure, AWS Bedrock, and dozens more. LiteLLM is popular as a self-hosted gateway with features like spend tracking, rate limiting, and team management.
Key features
Core capabilities each platform advertises.
- High throughput
- Low latency
- Go-based
- Open source
- Open-source LLM proxy
- OpenAI-compatible API for 100+ providers
- Budget management and rate limiting
- Self-hostable
- Automatic retries and fallbacks
Strengths and tradeoffs
What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.
Pros
- Extraordinary performance—50× faster than LiteLLM
- Just 11 µs overhead at 5,000 requests per second
- Open source (Apache 2.0) with active GitHub community
- Zero configuration deployment with automatic failover
Cons
- Limited publicly available pricing information
- Relatively new platform still building ecosystem
- Documentation may be less comprehensive than established alternatives
Pros
- Free open-source core with MIT license
- Unified interface to 100+ LLM providers
- 18k+ GitHub stars with strong community
- Trusted by major enterprises
Cons
- Hidden operational costs (USD 200-500/mo infrastructure)
- Production latency overhead (20-40ms typical)
- Enterprise features require USD 30k annual fee
- Operational burden for self-hosting teams
Bifrost or LiteLLM — which should you choose?
Choose Bifrost if you wantChoose if you want
Choose LiteLLM if you wantChoose if you want
- Self-hosted LLM gateway for data control
- Standardizing LLM access across teams
- Budget enforcement per team or project
- Provider migration without code changes
- Open-source LLM infrastructure
Compare Bifrost and LiteLLM on your own traffic
Respan lets you trace LLM and agent calls across any model or framework, A/B test prompts on production traffic, and route requests across 500+ models through one gateway.