How to Get a Nebius API Key
Create a Nebius account at Nebius AI Cloud, generate your API key, store it securely, then integrate with Bifrost for virtual keys, budgets, and cost governance. Complete setup in minutes.
Nebius provider summary
Bifrost supports Nebius through OpenAI-compatible HTTP APIs with EU data residency for regulated workloads.
| Property | Details |
|---|---|
| Description | Nebius provides GDPR-compliant LLM inference in the EU with popular open-source models and OpenAI-compatible APIs. |
| Provider route on Bifrost | nebius/<model> |
| Provider doc | Nebius |
| API endpoint for provider | https://api.nebius.ai/v1 |
| Supported endpoints | /v1/models, /v1/completions, /v1/chat/completions, /v1/responses, /v1/images/generations, /v1/embeddings |
Official Nebius Resources
Use these Nebius links for console access, API documentation, and compliance information.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, you will need:
[ QUICK START ]
How Do You Get a Nebius API Key in 5 Steps?
Create a Nebius account
Visit Nebius AI Cloud and sign in or get started.
Go to Nebius AI Cloud and click Get started with AI Cloud or Log in to AI Cloud in the header, then complete sign-up and verify your email.
Open API Keys in Account Settings
From the profile menu, open Account Settings, then select API Keys in the sidebar.
Generate and copy your API key
Your key is shown once, copy it immediately.
Click Create New API Key, name it, and copy the value. Store it as an environment variable.
export NEBIUS_API_KEY="..."
Make your first Chat Completions call
Nebius uses OpenAI-compatible Bearer authentication.
Nebius accepts Authorization: Bearer on OpenAI-compatible endpoints:
$ curl https://api.nebius.ai/v1/chat/completions -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEBIUS_API_KEY" -d '{ "model": "meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct", "messages": [{"role":"user","content":"Hello from Nebius!"}] }'
[ MODELS ]
Available Nebius Models
| Model | API ID | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Meta Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct | Flagship Llama on Nebius Token Factory. |
| Meta Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | meta-llama/Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct | Production open-weight chat. |
| Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct | meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct | Cost-efficient inference. |
| Qwen 2.5 72B Instruct | Qwen/Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct | Strong Qwen reasoning and coding. |
| Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 | mistralai/Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3 | Compact Mistral tier. |
| DeepSeek V3 | deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3 | DeepSeek flagship on Nebius. |
| google/gemma-2-9b-it | google/gemma-2-9b-it | Gemma 2 instruct workloads. |
Models and availability change over time. See the Nebius's models documentation for the latest list and pricing.
[ TROUBLESHOOTING ]
Troubleshooting Common Nebius Issues
| 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 and confirm model ID is valid. |
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 Mistral service unavailability. | Retry after a delay. Check Mistral status page. Configure failover with Bifrost. |
[ PRODUCTION-READY ]
Use Nebius with Bifrost
Bifrost is a drop-in replacement for Nebius SDKs: keep your client code and change the base URL to your gateway. Bifrost handles cost tracking, virtual keys, budgets, and failover automatically.
Step 1: Start Bifrost and register Nebius
Run the Bifrost gateway and configure your Mistral 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 OpenAI SDK at Bifrost
Update your OpenAI SDK client to route through the Bifrost gateway.
from openai import OpenAI client = OpenAI( api_key="sk-bf-your-virtual-key", base_url="http://localhost:8080/openai" ) response = client.chat.completions.create( model="nebius/meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct", 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 ]
Try Bifrost Enterprise with a 14-day Free Trial
Drop-in replacement for any AI SDK
Change just one line of code. Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain, and more.
[ FAQ ]
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Nebius offers EU data residency with GDPR-compliant infrastructure, suitable for European organizations and regulated industries.
Nebius operates in the EU with data residency in Germany and Switzerland.
Yes. Point the OpenAI SDK at https://api.nebius.ai/v1 with your Nebius API key.
Nebius hosts popular open models including Llama, Mistral, and Qwen families.
Yes. Add Nebius in the Bifrost dashboard and route requests through http://localhost:8080/nebius.
Nebius maintains SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and GDPR compliance.