Best AI Gateways with Multi-LLM Support for Enterprises

TL;DR: Enterprise AI applications need gateways to manage multiple LLM providers through unified APIs. Bifrost offers intelligent routing with evaluation integration, Cloudflare provides edge deployment, LiteLLM focuses on open-source flexibility, Kong AI extends existing API infrastructure, and Helicone emphasizes observability.

Why Enterprises Need Multi-LLM Gateways

Running production AI applications exposes critical infrastructure gaps. Traditional API gateways can't handle AI workloads because they don't count tokens, process streaming responses, or manage provider-specific rate limits.

The core challenges:

• Provider reliability: No single LLM provider guarantees 100% uptime. Automatic failover prevents service disruption.
• Cost optimization: Model pricing varies drastically. Smart routing can reduce costs by 50-90% for similar quality.
• Performance requirements: Different tasks need different model capabilities without application code changes.
• Vendor independence: Switching providers should be seamless as better models emerge.

Platform Comparison

Bifrost: Enterprise Gateway with Evaluation

Bifrost is Maxim AI's production-grade LLM gateway that unifies access to 12+ providers through a single OpenAI-compatible API. Unlike standalone routing solutions, Bifrost integrates with Maxim's evaluation platform for quality-based routing decisions.

Key Features

Smart Routing

• Automatic fallbacks with multi-tier provider failover (OpenAI → Anthropic → Azure)
• Cost-based routing to optimize spend across models
• Load balancing across multiple API keys and providers
• Custom routing logic based on request metadata

Performance Optimization

• Semantic caching identifies similar requests to reduce costs by up to 90%
• Multimodal support for text, images, audio, and streaming
• Model Context Protocol enables AI models to use external tools securely

Enterprise Capabilities

• Budget management with hierarchical cost controls and spending alerts
• SSO integration for Google and GitHub authentication
• Vault support for secure API key management
• Native observability with Prometheus metrics and distributed tracing

Developer Experience

• Zero-config deployment with dynamic provider configuration
• Drop-in replacement for OpenAI, Anthropic, and other provider SDKs
• SDK integrations with LangChain, LlamaIndex, and Vercel AI

Best For

Bifrost suits teams needing routing decisions based on quality metrics, not just cost. Integration with Maxim's observability suite enables teams to track quality issues in production and route requests to models that perform best for specific task types.

Organizations building AI agents benefit from Bifrost's integration with Maxim's simulation and evaluation tools, creating a unified workflow from pre-release testing through production optimization.

Cloudflare AI Gateway

Cloudflare AI Gateway uses Cloudflare's global edge network for low-latency LLM access.

Features:

• Edge caching reduces latency globally
• DDoS protection and rate limiting
• Basic analytics dashboard
• 10+ provider support

LiteLLM

LiteLLM is an open-source proxy translating requests across 100+ providers using OpenAI's API format.

Features:

• Unified OpenAI-compatible API
• Basic load balancing
• Extensive provider coverage
• Docker deployment

Kong AI Gateway

Kong AI Gateway extends Kong's API platform with LLM-specific capabilities.

Features:

• Provider abstraction layer
• Kong plugin ecosystem integration
• Multi-cloud deployment
• RAG pipeline automation

Helicone

Helicone focuses on LLM observability with gateway functionality.

Features:

• Detailed request logging
• Cost tracking analytics
• Prompt versioning
• Basic caching

Making the Right Choice

Choose Bifrost if:

• You need routing based on evaluation metrics
• Quality measurement matters as much as cost optimization
• Adaptive load balancing
• Rule-based routing
• You're building AI agents requiring continuous evaluation
• Enterprise compliance and SLAs are critical

Choose alternatives if:

• Cloudflare: Already on Cloudflare, need simple edge routing
• LiteLLM: Self-hosting requirement, early-stage prototyping
• Kong: Existing Kong infrastructure to leverage
• Helicone: Observability is primary concern

The Evaluation Advantage

Most AI gateways solve routing but leave quality measurement separate. This creates fragmented workflows where teams manage infrastructure and quality independently.

Bifrost's integration with Maxim's evaluation platform connects routing with quality metrics. Teams can route requests to models performing best on specific tasks, detect quality degradation automatically, and optimize cost-quality tradeoffs using human evaluation data.

This unified approach reduces operational overhead and enables systematic quality improvement. Organizations treating gateways as pure infrastructure miss opportunities to improve quality continuously.

Conclusion

AI gateway selection impacts both immediate reliability and long-term strategy. The right platform should provide failover capabilities, cost optimization, and quality improvement workflows.

Bifrost offers enterprise-grade routing with zero-config deployment, automatic fallbacks, and semantic caching while integrating with Maxim's evaluation suite for continuous improvement.

Explore Bifrost documentation or schedule a demo to see how integrated routing and evaluation accelerate AI development.