LiteLLM vs Respan (2026)
Updated March 10, 2026
vs
Overview
Rating
10.0 / 10
Rating
10.0 / 10
Best For
Engineering teams who want a self-hosted, open-source LLM proxy for managing providers, keys, and budgets
Best For
AI engineering teams building production LLM applications who need unified access, observability, and cost control
Product Summary
LiteLLM is an open-source LLM gateway and Python SDK from BerriAI that puts 140+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API you host yourself.
Product Summary
Respan is the AI router with built-in observability and automated evals: one API for 1,000+ models, with tracing, spend control, and evals on every request.
Starting Price
Free
Starting Price
$0
Free Trial
No
Free Trial
Yes
Free Version
Yes
Free Version
Yes
Website
Website
Key features
Core capabilities each platform advertises.
- OpenAI-compatible proxy for 140+ providers
- Virtual keys scoped to users and teams
- Budgets, rate limits, and spend tracking
- Fallbacks, retries, and load balancing
- Guardrails for PII masking and prompt injection
- One API for 1,000+ models
- Automatic fallbacks and retries
- Load balancing across providers and models
- Exact-match caching with configurable TTL
- Hard spend limits per key, per customer, or org-wide
- Task-aware model routing with Respan Router (beta)
- Tracing, evals, and prompt management on every routed request
Strengths and tradeoffs
What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.
Pros
- MIT-licensed proxy, free at any volume
- 140+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API
- Virtual keys and budgets per user and team
- Runs inside your own infrastructure
Cons
- You run, scale, and secure the proxy yourself
- Two PyPI releases were compromised in a March 2026 supply chain attack
- SSO, RBAC, and audit logs require the Enterprise license
- Tracing and evals depend on separate tools
Pros
- Gateway, tracing, and evals in one platform, so every metric ties back to the request behind it
- 1,000+ models through one OpenAI-compatible API
- No processing fee on Respan credits, and provider discounts are passed straight through
- Hard spend caps that block requests, not just alert
- Unlimited seats on the free plan
- SOC 2, HIPAA with a BAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001
Cons
- Additional latency (30-40ms) from routing through a gateway layer
- Newer platform with smaller community compared to established tools
- Some advanced provider-specific features may not be fully supported
LiteLLM or Respan — which should you choose?
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
- Switching providers without code changes
- Issuing scoped API keys to internal users
Choose Respan if you wantChoose if you want
- Keeping agents online through provider outages and rate limits
- Controlling LLM spend per customer or API key
- Switching models without code changes
- Scoring output quality on live production traffic
- Replacing a separate gateway, logging tool, and eval tool with one platform