Building an LLM API Gateway in Node.js

When many services call LLM providers directly, teams end up with duplicated keys, inconsistent retries, weak visibility, and surprise spend.

The article recommends putting an API gateway between apps and model providers to centralize routing, rate limiting, guardrails, and cost tracking.

It compares LiteLLM, Portkey, and Cloudflare AI Gateway, then shows how to set up LiteLLM as an OpenAI-compatible proxy in Node.js.

Using a YAML config and Docker makes it easier to switch models and providers like GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet without changing application code.