Bifrost

Product Introduction

1. Bifrost is an open-source LLM gateway designed to streamline interactions with 1,000+ AI models through a unified API interface, offering high throughput and low latency for enterprise-scale AI applications.
2. Its core value lies in combining extreme performance (40x faster than LiteLLM) with integrated governance, dynamic plugin architecture, and seamless integration with Maxim for end-to-end AI observability and evaluation.

Main Features

1. Bifrost provides a unified API interface supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, Google GenAI, and custom models, enabling code compatibility across providers with a single line change to existing SDKs like LangChain or LiteLLM.
2. The gateway includes automatic provider fallback mechanisms to ensure 99.99% uptime by dynamically rerouting requests during outages or performance degradation.
3. Built-in OpenTelemetry integration and a dashboard deliver out-of-the-box observability for monitoring latency, success rates, and costs without complex setup.

Problems Solved

1. Bifrost eliminates the complexity of managing multiple LLM providers, API keys, and inconsistent SDKs by centralizing access to 1,000+ models through a single endpoint.
2. It targets engineering teams and enterprises building production AI applications that require reliability, cost control, and compliance with security policies.
3. Typical use cases include deploying multi-provider AI stacks with automated failover, enforcing budget limits across teams, and auditing model usage for regulated industries.

Unique Advantages

1. Bifrost outperforms alternatives like LiteLLM with 40x higher throughput (4,999 RPS vs. 44 RPS), 68% lower memory usage (120MB vs. 372MB), and 54x faster P99 latency (1.68s vs. 90.72s) under identical loads.
2. Its dynamic plugin architecture allows runtime integration of MCP servers for extending AI capabilities with databases, security checks, and custom logic without service restarts.
3. Competitive differentiators include zero-downtime key rotation, virtual key management for secure credential handling, and granular cost tracking per project/model/provider.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How does Bifrost integrate with existing AI SDKs? Bifrost acts as a drop-in replacement requiring only a base URL change to existing OpenAI, Anthropic, or LangChain clients, preserving full SDK functionality while routing requests through the gateway.
2. What makes Bifrost faster than LiteLLM? Benchmarks show Bifrost processes 5,000 RPS with 10μs added latency on a single t3.xlarge instance due to optimized JSON marshaling (26μs), efficient memory usage (3.34GB peak), and concurrent request parsing (2ms/response).
3. How does Bifrost handle API key security? Virtual keys decouple provider credentials from application code, enabling automated rotation via RBAC policies and audit logs without disrupting live services.
4. Can Bifrost connect to MCP servers? Yes, it establishes centralized MCP connections for cross-team resource governance, including auth protocols, budget enforcement, and security rule validation before model execution.
5. Is Bifrost truly open-source? Bifrost is licensed under Apache 2.0, with full source code available on GitHub, including plugins for load testing (bifrost benchmark --rps 5000) and performance monitoring.