LLM Gateways & Serving
LLM API routers, gateways, serving infrastructure, and model hosting. Tools that sit between your app and one or more language models.
Our editors' top LLM Gateways & Serving picks for 2026 are OpenRouter (best for Route to any LLM through one API), Groq (best for Ultra-low-latency model inference), and TOGETHER (best for Host and fine-tune open models). All 20 tools in this category are hand-reviewed and re-checked each edition — the full ranked directory is below.
Where to start
OpenRouter
AI Infrastructure
Freemium
4.84
360
Groq
AI Infrastructure
Paid - Inquire
4.87
430
TOGETHER
Developer Tools
Paid - Inquire
4.93
441
Fireworks AI
AI/ML Models
Paid - Inquire
4.92
420
Replicate
Developer Tools
Paid - Inquire
4.92
420
Ollama
Developer Tools
Free
4.93
470
Sorted by
Nebius
Nebius is an AI-native GPU cloud platform that rents NVIDIA H100 through GB200 clusters with managed Slurm, Kubernetes and an inference API.
Paid - Paid
4.93
470
Ollama
Ollama is a local LLM runtime that downloads, runs, and serves open models on your own hardware via a CLI and an OpenAI-compatible API.
Free
4.93
470
TOGETHER
Cloud service for developers to build with open-source AI, offering APIs, distributed training systems, and leading open-source models.
Paid - Inquire
4.93
441
Groq
Enterprise-scale AI solutions for ultra-fast language processing and inference.
Paid - Inquire
4.87
430
Fireworks AI
High-speed, cost-efficient generative AI for product innovation with advanced fine-tuning capabilities.
Paid - Inquire
4.92
420
Replicate
Cloud platform for running, deploying, and scaling machine learning models with ease.
Paid - Inquire
4.92
420
RunPod
Globally distributed GPU cloud for AI tasks.
Paid - Inquire
4.91
410
Modal
Modal offers an easy way for developers to run code in the cloud with serverless compute and containerized environments.
Paid - $30 /mo
4.86
400
OpenRouter
Unified API and marketplace for the best LLMs at the best prices for any prompt.
Freemium
4.84
360
Anyscale
Unified compute platform for scalable AI and Python applications using Ray
Paid - Inquire
4.83
360
LiteLLM
Universal LLM proxy — call 100+ LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Vertex) with one API.
Freemium
4.75
325
TrueFoundry
Enterprise AI gateway and platform to deploy, govern and scale LLMs, agents and MCP tools on any cloud.
Freemium
4.84
287
Tetrate
Envoy-based enterprise AI gateway routing traffic across models with per-team agent cost attribution.
Free Trial
4.84
261
Not Diamond
Not Diamond is a model routing layer that selects the right LLM for each query to raise quality and cut costs.
Paid - Inquire
4.84
245
Sail Research
Sail Research is an inference platform that pairs low-cost model serving with stateful agent sandboxes.
Freemium
4.84
244
Voltage Park
Voltage Park is a GPU cloud platform that rents NVIDIA H100 and Blackwell clusters on-demand or on dedicated reserve for AI training and inference.
Paid - Paid
4.75
240
Lepton AI
Cloud-native AI inference platform built by Caffe creator Yangqing Jia. Acquired by NVIDIA in May 2025 to power the inference cloud strategy.
Freemium
4.81
238
Neurometric
Inference orchestration that routes each AI task to the right-sized model, with caching and failover.
Paid - Inquire
4.83
233
DeepInfra
DeepInfra is an inference cloud that serves open-weight AI models — Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral — behind a pay-per-token, OpenAI-compatible API.
Paid - Paid
4.46
170
BentoML
Platform for software engineers to build AI applications.
Paid - Inquire
4.63
113
LLM Gateways & Serving AI, answered
What is an LLM gateway?
An LLM gateway is a single API that routes requests to many language models behind one interface, handling keys, fallbacks, and cost tracking. OpenRouter is a common example, letting you switch models without rewriting code. It simplifies comparing providers and avoids lock-in to one vendor.
What is the fastest LLM inference provider?
Groq is known for very low latency using custom hardware, and Fireworks and Together also optimize open-model serving for speed. The fastest choice depends on the model and request pattern, so benchmark on your own prompts. Latency, throughput, and cost trade off differently across providers.
Where can I host open-source models?
Together AI, Fireworks, and Replicate host open models behind an API so you avoid managing GPUs, while RunPod and Modal give you raw compute to run them yourself. For local use, Ollama runs models on your own machine. Choose based on scale, control, and whether you want managed or self-operated serving.
What is the difference between a model gateway and a serving platform?
A gateway like OpenRouter routes requests across providers through one API but does not host the models itself. A serving platform like Fireworks or Together runs the models and returns results. Many teams use a gateway in front of one or more serving platforms to balance cost and reliability.
How do I run an LLM locally?
Tools like Ollama download and run open models on your own hardware with a simple command, exposing a local API your app can call. Local serving keeps data private and removes per-call cost, but it is limited by your GPU or CPU. It suits development, privacy-sensitive use, and smaller models.
How do I cut LLM API costs?
Route cheaper requests to smaller or open models, cache repeated responses, and trim prompt length. A gateway like OpenRouter makes it easy to switch models by price and performance, and open-model hosts like Together often cost less than frontier APIs. Match each task to the smallest model that meets quality.
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