Zabio vs LiteLLM
LiteLLM is an open-source proxy that runs on your own servers, in front of your own provider accounts. It is flexible and free to self-host. Zabio is hosted: one key and one prepaid balance for eight vendors, routing that decides for each request, and nothing to run, patch or scale.
At a glance
| Zabio | LiteLLM | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A hosted router that picks the model for you | An open-source proxy you run yourself |
| How it charges | Provider list price plus a (see the pricing page) service fee, and (see the pricing page) per auto request for automatic model choice. No cut of what routing saves, no subscription, no fee on top-ups | Free to self-host, enterprise license by quote. You pay the providers and your servers |
| Its fee is based on | The provider price of each call, plus a fixed fee per auto request. Never your saving | Your license and your servers |
| Automatic model choice | Per request, the model and its reasoning setting, from public benchmark results by task and difficulty, on three lines you can name, with extra care on high-stakes jobs, and a request split across models when that is cheaper | Auto routing between models you configure: simple prompts to cheaper models, hard ones to stronger models |
| What you see per call | The model, why it was chosen, the cost and the saving, in the response itself | Spend and logs in your own proxy |
| Your own provider keys | No service fee on those calls; auto requests pay (see the pricing page) each for automatic model choice | Always your own keys |
| Teams and spend limits | Unlimited organizations, member quotas, per-key caps and model allow lists, and an audit log, all included | Keys, teams and budgets; organizations, SSO and audit logs come with the enterprise license |
| Models | 114 chat models from 10 vendors | 140+ providers |
| Where it runs | Hosted by Zabio in the United States | On your own servers |
Where LiteLLM beats us
- The gateway must run inside your own infrastructure, for policy or network reasons.
- You want to read and change the code. LiteLLM is open source.
- You need a provider Zabio does not serve. LiteLLM supports more than 140.
- It has a large open-source community and years of use behind it.
Where we beat LiteLLM
We care most about one number: how much we save you. Everything below follows from that.
- You would rather not run infrastructure: no servers, database, upgrades or scaling to manage.
- You want one prepaid balance and one bill for eight vendors, instead of an account and an invoice at each provider.
- You want routing that decides per request from measured evidence, plus Smart Splitting and Jev for classification, instead of rules you write and maintain.
- You want teams, member quotas, an audit log and organizations included. LiteLLM keeps organizations, SSO and audit logs for its enterprise license.
Switching from LiteLLM
If your app calls a LiteLLM proxy through the OpenAI SDK, point base_url at https://api.zabio.ai/v1 and use your Zabio key. If you keep LiteLLM, add Zabio to its configuration as an OpenAI-compatible provider and send model auto through it.
What makes the difference, in depth
Smart Splitting
One request, several models, a smaller bill, decided for you on every call. When we can save, we save.
Smart routing
The right model and reasoning setting for every request, picked from evidence, with the reason on every response.
Jev for classification
Tagging, routing, moderation and sentiment for a fraction of the price of a chat model, named or picked by auto.
Caching
Your history cached for you, the 1 hour cache when turns are slow, and never a cut of your cache discount.
Flex
Half price when you can wait, with one deadline field.
Batching
Thousands of requests in one file at about half price, with auto routing on every line.
Teams and keys
Organizations, member quotas, keys with spend caps and model lists, and your own vendor keys with no service fee.
Questions
- How is Zabio different from LiteLLM?
- LiteLLM is an open-source proxy that you host and operate yourself, with your own provider accounts and bills. Zabio is hosted: one key and one prepaid balance for eight vendors, routing that picks the model for each request, teams and quotas included, and nothing to run or patch.
- Can I control what each person and each key spends?
- Yes. Owners and admins set a monthly quota per member, and every API key can have its own monthly spend cap, request and token limits per minute, and a list of the models it may use. Calls stop with 429 quota_exceeded when a limit is reached.
- What is Smart Splitting?
- Under auto, a request that carries a long document and asks about only part of it can be split: a cheap model copies out the lines the question needs, word for word, Jev checks that the extract holds everything the answer needs, and the model auto picked answers from that extract instead of the whole document. If the check fails, Zabio sends the full document and pays for the attempt itself, so a split never costs you more. In our tests it cut the cost of long-document questions by about a third on average, and by more than half on contracts, with every fact kept. It never applies to a model you name, every step shows in zabio.split, and zabio.split set to off turns it off for a request.
Checked on 28 September 2026 from each company's public pages. Prices and features change. If something here is out of date, tell us at hello@zabio.ai and we will fix it. Sources: LiteLLM, LiteLLM enterprise.