> /v1/alternatives/kong-ai-gateway
Open source alternatives to Kong AI Gateway[005]
Kong AI Gateway adds LLM routing, prompt governance, token-based rate limiting and AI traffic observability on top of Kong's API gateway. Below are 5 self-hostable open source alternatives, ranked by GitHub popularity.
LiteLLM
Call every LLM API like it's OpenAI [100+ LLMs]
★ STARS
46.2k
⑂ FORKS
7.9k
portkey-ai-gateway
A blazing fast AI Gateway with integrated guardrails. Route to 1,600+ LLMs, 50+ AI Guardrails with 1 fast & friendly API.
★ STARS
11.6k
⑂ FORKS
1.0k
Bifrost
Fastest enterprise AI gateway (50x faster than LiteLLM) with adaptive load balancer, cluster mode, guardrails, 1000+ models support & <100 µs overhead at 5k RPS.
★ STARS
4.7k
⑂ FORKS
557
envoy-ai-gateway
Manages Unified Access to Generative AI Services built on Envoy Gateway
★ STARS
1.6k
⑂ FORKS
241
llm-gateway
Route, manage, and analyze your LLM requests across multiple providers with a unified API interface.
★ STARS
1.2k
⑂ FORKS
130
// EDITOR'S TAKE
envoy-ai-gateway is the closest architecturally, enforcing AI policy in the same proxy layer as the rest of your traffic and inheriting Envoy's operational maturity, which is the whole reason people run Kong's version. LiteLLM supports far more providers with key and budget management built in, while portkey-ai-gateway is the one to choose when guardrails and prompt versioning are the actual requirement.
// FREQUENTLY ASKED
What is the best open source Kong AI Gateway alternative?
LiteLLM is the most popular open source Kong AI Gateway alternative by GitHub stars (46,158 stars). The other 4 options are ranked above.
Are these Kong AI Gateway alternatives self-hostable?
Yes — every project listed here is open source and runs on your own infrastructure. Click into a project to see its license, stars, language, and current health status.
Are they free?
All projects shown are free and open source. Check each project's license page for the terms — most are MIT, Apache 2.0, or AGPL.