Bifrost AI Gateway
Verified Oct 2, 2026 ActiveOpen-source Go gateway that fronts many LLM providers with one OpenAI-compatible API, fallbacks, budgets and an MCP gateway.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
The open-source gateway is free to self-host with Docker, Kubernetes or a Go binary. Enterprise (guardrails, cluster mode, adaptive load balancing, SSO, audit logs, VPC or air-gapped deployment) has no listed price and is quoted on request, with a 14-day free trial advertised.
Use tool ↗About Bifrost AI Gateway
Bifrost, from Maxim AI, is a gateway you run between your application and model providers. Point an existing OpenAI, Anthropic or LangChain client at it by changing the base URL, and it routes requests across providers and keys, retries and fails over automatically, enforces budgets and rate limits through virtual keys, and caches responses. It also includes an MCP gateway for agent tools and an observability layer. The core is open source under Apache-2.0 and starts with one npx command; an enterprise edition adds guardrails, clustering, SSO and audit logs.
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 2, 2026
Verified sources
- Gateway features, benchmark claims by the vendor, OSS vs enterprise features, npx quickstartgetmaxim.ai ↗
- Free Apache-2.0 OSS edition and custom-priced Enterprise; self-hosting optionsgetmaxim.ai ↗
- Repository under Apache-2.0, created March 2025github.com ↗
- Company is H3 Labs Inc, Mountain View, California, operating Maximgetmaxim.ai ↗
Is Bifrost AI Gateway legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Last checked
- Oct 2, 2026The site answered
- On the market since
- 2025The vendor's own material, read by us
- Operated by
- H3 Labs Inc (Maxim AI), United StatesOur research, card verified Oct 2, 2026
Pros & cons of Bifrost AI Gateway
Bifrost is a credible open-source option when you want to centralise provider keys, fallbacks and spend limits without writing your own proxy. The vendor's headline speed comparison with LiteLLM comes from its own benchmark, so test it on your own traffic before treating it as settled.
Pros
- Drop-in: change the base URL of an existing SDK client
- Automatic provider fallback, semantic caching and virtual-key budgets in the free edition
- Includes an MCP gateway for agent tool access
- Apache-2.0 licensed with active commits
Cons
- Guardrails, cluster mode, adaptive load balancing and SSO are enterprise-only
- Enterprise pricing is not published
- The enterprise trial is by request access rather than self-serve signup
Best for
- Platform teams that want one internal endpoint for many model providers
- Companies that need budgets and virtual keys per team or project
- Self-hosted setups that must run inside a VPC or on-premise
Not for
- Individuals who only call one model provider from a single app
- Teams that want a fully managed, pay-as-you-go routing service with a public price list
Watch out: The 50x-faster-than-LiteLLM and latency figures on the product page are the vendor's own benchmark on its chosen hardware. The company's main product is Maxim's evaluation and observability platform; the gateway is its open-source entry point.
Top alternatives to Bifrost AI Gateway
Bifrost AI Gateway head-to-head
Side-by-side fact sheets against the competitors our research or their makers name — pricing, platforms, API and both verdicts on one page.