LiteLLM alternatives for developers running coding agents (2026)

LiteLLM became the default answer to "how do I put every provider behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint." It is a big Python proxy with virtual keys, budgets, and 100+ providers, and for a while it was the whole category.

Then version 1.107.0 shipped a credential stealer, and a lot of people who had installed it for a single reason, one key for their coding agents, started asking whether a 200,000-line proxy was the right tool for that reason.

The lists that rank for this query are aimed at platform teams: Bifrost versus Portkey versus TrueFoundry on requests per second and RBAC. That is a real market, and we link the options below. But if you are one developer with a few plans and a few keys, and your "traffic" is Claude Code and Codex, the criteria are different:

• Does it route the subscriptions I already pay for, or only API keys?
• Does it need a server I maintain?
• What happens when a provider rate-limits me mid-task?
• Can I use one key from every tool without editing five config files?

We build OpenLLM and it is first on the list for that reader. The rest are listed straight.

OpenLLM

OpenLLM is a hosted gateway with a local daemon for subscriptions. It routes Claude Pro and Max, ChatGPT Plus and Pro, SuperGrok, Kimi Code, and Cursor plans alongside API keys from Anthropic, OpenAI, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and local models from Ollama or LM Studio. LiteLLM cannot use any of those plans; it only speaks API keys.

The daemon runs subscription requests through the vendor's own CLI login on your machine. Subscription credentials never reach OpenLLM's servers. API keys are encrypted in your browser under a recovery phrase OpenLLM does not hold.

You get fallback chains (ultra, plus, lite) that walk from one plan to the next to a metered key when a provider is down, rate-limited, or over its context window, before any output starts. You get one usage view across every plan. And you get launchers that do the config for you: openllm claude, openllm codex, openllm opencode, openllm grok, each of which starts the real client pointed at the gateway without editing its config files.

Endpoints: https://openllm.sh/v1 for OpenAI format (chat completions and responses), https://openllm.sh/v1/messages for Anthropic format.

Pricing: free for 50M non-cached tokens a month on 2 devices, no card. Pro is $30 a month for unlimited tokens, and 5 devices. No token markup.

Not for you if: you need a self-hosted server on your own infrastructure, Windows (macOS and Linux only for the daemon), or team features like per-user budgets. OpenLLM is single-user today.

Bifrost

Maxim's Go gateway, Apache 2.0, and the most direct LiteLLM replacement for people who want the same job in a smaller, faster binary. Single-binary deploy, 20+ providers, built-in observability. If you were running LiteLLM as a self-hosted server and want to keep that shape, start here.

Portkey

Open-source gateway plus a hosted control plane. Guardrails, retries, prompt management, and a strong observability story. More product-team than solo-developer; the hosted plans reflect that.

Vercel AI Gateway

One key, provider-list pricing, no markup, observability in the Vercel dashboard. If your app is a Next.js deployment on Vercel, this is the least infrastructure of anything on this list. Not self-hosted and not for CLI coding agents outside a Vercel app.

Cloudflare AI Gateway

Logging, caching, and rate limits in front of providers you already have keys for. Generous free tier. Good for apps, less relevant for interactive CLIs.

MLflow AI Gateway

Linux Foundation governed, with tracing and evaluation built in. The natural choice if your team already runs MLflow.

TrueFoundry, Kong AI Gateway

Enterprise control planes: RBAC, audit, private deployment. Listed for completeness; if you need them you already know it.

OpenRouter

Not a LiteLLM replacement in shape, but it solves the "one key, many models" problem from the other side: a hosted marketplace with their accounts and a fee on credits. Works if you would rather not hold provider accounts at all. Compared in OpenRouter alternatives.

Picking one

• One developer, subscriptions plus a few keys, coding agents all day: OpenLLM.
• Self-hosted server, API keys only, want the smallest thing that does the LiteLLM job: Bifrost.
• App on Vercel or Cloudflare: use the platform gateway.
• Platform team with governance requirements: Portkey, TrueFoundry, Kong.

OpenLLM also accepts any OpenAI-compatible endpoint as a provider, so a self-hosted Bifrost or LiteLLM instance can sit as one hop in an OpenLLM chain if you need both.