LiteLLM
ActiveOpen-source AI gateway and Python SDK that puts 100+ LLM providers behind one OpenAI-format API
LiteLLM is a strong free default for putting many model providers behind one OpenAI-format API on your own infrastructure, with virtual keys, budgets, load balancing and guardrails in the open-source plan. Conditional on security discipline: its PyPI package suffered a supply-chain compromise, an MCP authentication bypass has been exploited in the wild, and Wiz found exposed instances accepting the default master key or no authentication. Right for platform teams that pin versions, patch promptly and harden deployments.
A self-hosted proxy forwards OpenAI-format requests to 100+ LLM providers and wraps those calls in keys, budgets, routing and logging.
Is it right for you?
Good for
- Calling many model providers through one interface: LiteLLM's docs describe a single OpenAI-format API across 100+ LLMs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Vertex AI and Bedrock
- Platform teams controlling spend and access, with virtual keys, budgets, teams and RPM/TPM limits included in the free open-source plan
- Keeping model traffic inside your own infrastructure, with self-hosted deployment via Docker, Helm charts or Terraform, including air-gapped
- Resilient routing, with built-in retry and fallback logic in the SDK Router and load balancing across providers and regions
- Trying enterprise features before buying: a 30-day self-hosted Enterprise trial key is emailed with no sales call and no credit card
Not good for
- Deployments left on defaults: Wiz says the master key is still set by default to sk-1234 on Docker compose and pip installs, and nearly 1 in 10 of 3,074 publicly exposed deployments it scanned in February 2026 accepted a default master key or required no authentication
- Unpinned pip installs: compromised PyPI releases 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 were live on March 24, 2026, and LiteLLM told affected users to rotate all secrets
- Internet-facing proxies nobody keeps patched: per Wiz, CVE-2026-59822, an MCP authentication bypass fixed in v1.84.0, has been exploited in the wild and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and CVE-2026-59821, a post-auth RCE through custom code guardrails, was fixed in v1.82.0
- Buyers who need published enterprise pricing, since LiteLLM Enterprise is priced through sales
Our experience
Pricing
Open Source- 140+ LLM provider integrations
- Virtual keys, budgets and teams
- Load balancing and RPM/TPM limits
- LLM guardrails
- SSO and SCIM
- Audit logs on every request
- 24/7 support with response-time SLAs
- 30-day self-hosted trial, no credit card
Workflow recipes
Stand up a hardened proxy
Run the LiteLLM gateway without inheriting the defaults Wiz flagged
- Install the proxy with uv tool install 'litellm[proxy]'
- Replace the example sk-1234 master key with a strong, unique key
- Start it against a model with litellm --model gpt-4o
- Review configured guardrails for unexpected entries and restart the process to clear memory
- Audit pass-through endpoints, restrict container network egress and apply least-privilege IAM roles to the service
No verdict changes yet
The clock starts day one — changes land here as our verdict evolves.
Sources
- LiteLLM licence (official)Sep 2026
- LiteLLM GitHub repository, README (official)Sep 2026
- LiteLLM website (official)Sep 2026
- Wiz Research: Off Guard, Breaking LiteLLM from authentication bypass to cloud compromise (Sep 9, 2026)Sep 2026
- LiteLLM, Security Update: Suspected Supply Chain Incident (official)Sep 2026
- LiteLLM docs, overview (official)Sep 2026
- LiteLLM Enterprise (official)Sep 2026
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