How to Get a Groq API Key
Create a Groq account at console.groq.com, generate your API key, configure billing for production, then integrate with Bifrost for ultra-fast LLM inference with failover and cost governance. Complete in minutes.
Groq provider summary
Bifrost supports Groq models through OpenAI-compatible HTTP APIs and standard JSON request shapes. Groq uses LPU hardware for ultra-fast inference.
| Property | Details |
|---|---|
| Description | Groq provides ultra-fast LLM inference using Language Processing Units (LPUs) for chat, reasoning, and coding workloads. |
| Provider route on Bifrost | groq/<model> |
| Provider doc | Groq Documentation |
| API endpoint for provider | https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 |
| Supported endpoints | /v1/models, /v1/completions, /v1/chat/completions, /v1/responses, /v1/audio/speech, /v1/audio/transcriptions |
Official Groq Resources
Use these Groq-hosted links for console access, API documentation, and authentication details.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, you will need:
[ QUICK START ]
How Do You Get a Groq API Key in 5 Steps?
Create or sign in to a Groq account
Use the Groq Console.
Go to console.groq.com and sign up with your email address, Google, GitHub, or SSO.
Navigate to API Keys
In the Groq console, click "API Keys". You'll see your existing keys and the option to create a new one.
Generate and copy your API key
Your key is displayed once. Copy it immediately and store it securely.
Click "Create API Key" and give it a descriptive name. Your key will be displayed. Copy it immediately and store it securely as an environment variable.
export GROQ_API_KEY="gsk-..."
Set up billing for production
Add a payment method when ready for higher limits.
Groq offers a free tier with generous token allowances. When you're ready for production use or exceed free limits, add a payment method in the Billing section.
Make your first Chat Completions call
Authenticate with Bearer tokens per Groq's OpenAI-compatible API.
Groq's API is OpenAI-compatible and uses Authorization: Bearer GROQ_API_KEY for REST calls:
$ curl https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $GROQ_API_KEY" \ -d '{ "model": "mixtral-8x7b-32768", "messages": [{"role":"user","content":"Hello!"}] }'
[ MODELS ]
Available Groq Models
| Model | API ID | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.3 70B Versatile | llama-3.3-70b-versatile | Production chat, reasoning, and coding at scale. |
| Llama 3.1 8B Instant | llama-3.1-8b-instant | Fast, cost-efficient inference for high volume. |
| GPT OSS 120B | openai/gpt-oss-120b | Open-weight flagship with tool use and reasoning. |
| GPT OSS 20B | openai/gpt-oss-20b | Lower-latency open-weight model for real-time apps. |
| Groq Compound | groq/compound | Agentic system with web search and code execution. |
| Groq Compound Mini | groq/compound-mini | Lighter compound system for faster agent workflows. |
| Llama 4 Scout 17B | meta-llama/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct | Preview multimodal Llama 4 on Groq. |
| Qwen3 32B | qwen/qwen3-32b | Preview dense Qwen3 reasoning model. |
| Whisper Large V3 | whisper-large-v3 | Speech-to-text transcription. |
| Whisper Large V3 Turbo | whisper-large-v3-turbo | Faster, lower-cost transcription. |
| Safety GPT OSS 20B | openai/gpt-oss-safeguard-20b | Preview safety-classified GPT-OSS variant. |
| Llama Prompt Guard 2 22M | meta-llama/llama-prompt-guard-2-22m | Input safety classification (preview). |
| Llama Prompt Guard 2 86M | meta-llama/llama-prompt-guard-2-86m | Stronger prompt guard model (preview). |
Models and availability change over time. See the Groq's documentation for the latest list and pricing.
[ TROUBLESHOOTING ]
Troubleshooting Common Groq API Errors
| Error | Likely Cause | What to Do |
|---|---|---|
401 Unauthorized | Invalid or missing API key. | Verify your API key is correct. Generate a new key if needed. |
400 Bad Request | Invalid request format or unsupported model. | Check request format against OpenAI API reference. Verify model ID. |
429 Rate Limited | Rate limit exceeded for your plan. | Upgrade your plan or implement exponential backoff. Use Bifrost for intelligent load distribution. |
502/503 Service Error | Temporary Groq service unavailability. | Retry after a delay. Check Groq status page. Configure failover with Bifrost. |
[ PRODUCTION-READY ]
Use Your Groq Key with Bifrost
Bifrost is a drop-in replacement for Groq SDKs. Update your base URL and keep your client code. Bifrost handles cost tracking, virtual keys, budgets, and intelligent failover.
Step 1: Start Bifrost and register Groq
Run the Bifrost gateway and configure your Groq credentials in the Web UI.
$ npx -y @maximhq/bifrost
✓ Bifrost started ├─ HTTP server listening on http://localhost:8080 ├─ Web UI available at http://localhost:8080 └─ Configure providers and virtual keys in the dashboard
Step 2: Point your Groq SDK at Bifrost
Update your SDK to route through Bifrost's OpenAI-compatible gateway.
from openai import OpenAI # BEFORE # client = OpenAI(api_key="your-groq-key", base_url="https://api.groq.com/openai/v1") # AFTER: route via Bifrost + virtual key client = OpenAI( api_key="sk-bf-your-virtual-key", base_url="http://localhost:8080/openai" ) response = client.chat.completions.create( model="groq/mixtral-8x7b-32768", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from Bifrost!"}] ) print(response.choices[0].message.content)
x-bf-vk or Authorization: Bearer sk-bf-* per the Bifrost documentation.[ WHAT'S NEXT ]
Explore Bifrost Resources
You have your API key. Add governance, guardrails, and MCP controls for production.
[ BIFROST FEATURES ]
Open Source & Enterprise
Everything you need to run AI in production, from free open source to enterprise-grade features.
01 Governance
SAML support for SSO and Role-based access control and policy enforcement for team collaboration.
02 Adaptive Load Balancing
Automatically optimizes traffic distribution across provider keys and models based on real-time performance metrics.
03 Cluster Mode
High availability deployment with automatic failover and load balancing. Peer-to-peer clustering where every instance is equal.
04 Alerts
Real-time notifications for budget limits, failures, and performance issues on Email, Slack, PagerDuty, Teams, Webhook and more.
05 Log Exports
Export and analyze request logs, traces, and telemetry data from Bifrost with enterprise-grade data export capabilities for compliance, monitoring, and analytics.
06 Audit Logs
Comprehensive logging and audit trails for compliance and debugging.
07 Vault Support
Secure API key management with HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, and Azure Key Vault integration.
08 VPC Deployment
Deploy Bifrost within your private cloud infrastructure with VPC isolation, custom networking, and enhanced security controls.
09 Guardrails
Automatically detect and block unsafe model outputs with real-time policy enforcement and content moderation across all agents.
[ SHIP RELIABLE AI ]
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[ FAQ ]
Frequently Asked Questions
Groq uses Language Processing Units (LPUs) instead of GPUs. LPUs are purpose-built hardware optimized for sequential token generation, delivering significantly lower latency than general-purpose GPUs.
Yes, Groq provides a free tier with generous token allowances for testing and development. For production use, upgrade to a paid plan for higher rate limits and throughput.
Yes. Groq provides an OpenAI-compatible API. You can use the official OpenAI Python and JavaScript SDKs by changing the base URL to Groq endpoint and providing your Groq API key.
Groq supports popular open-source models like Mixtral 8x7B, LLaMA 2, Gemma, and others. Check the Groq console for the latest available models and their specifications.
Implement exponential backoff in your application. For production workloads, upgrade your plan for higher limits. Use Bifrost to intelligently distribute requests across multiple providers.
Absolutely. Groq's ultra-fast inference makes it ideal for failover and fallback scenarios. Configure Bifrost to route requests to Groq when your primary provider is unavailable or slow.