Comparison

Cloptima vs LiteLLM

LiteLLM is a popular open-source proxy you run yourself, with virtual keys, budgets, guardrails, caching, and an MCP gateway. Cloptima is a governed AI gateway you can use hosted or run in your VPC, where every request needs a policy, personal data is redacted before the provider and restored in the response, and every call lands in an attributed spend record for chargeback and unit economics. Choose LiteLLM to operate a proxy; choose Cloptima when governance has to hold up to security and finance review.

FeatureCloptimaLiteLLM
AI FinOps Capabilities
DeploymentHosted gateway, or a private edge gateway in your VPC that enforces policy, guardrails, and budgets locallySelf-hosted proxy with Postgres and Redis
Policy on every requestNo policy, no traffic: a request without a policy you bound is refused with a clear reasonKeys carry their own models, budgets, and limits
GuardrailsBuilt-in credential detection and personal-data rules, plus Azure AI Content Safety, AWS Bedrock Guardrails, Google Model Armor, a webhook, or Cloptima-managed scansContent filters, PII masking, and partner guardrails on requests and responses
Redact and restorePersonal data and secrets are redacted before the provider sees them, then restored to the original text in the response, including streamed responses, tool calls, and structured outputPII masking on requests and responses
When a safety scan cannot runEach profile chooses to continue on local rules or block, and unchecked requests show as Not checkedConfigured per guardrail
BudgetsDaily and monthly budgets per team, app, environment, or key, one org-wide ceiling, Alert only or Block, held before the provider callBudgets and rate limits per key, user, and team
Org baseline policyOne organization-wide baseline for models, tools, guardrails, limits, and budgets. Every request gets its own policy plus the baseline, and the stricter setting wins, so teams can tighten the rules but never loosen themSettings per key, team, and user
MCP and tool governanceAllow and deny lists for tool servers and tools (denied tools are taken out of the request), approvals before a server goes live, tool definition changes flagged, and spend by tool, set per policy on top of your org baselineMCP gateway reached with the same virtual keys
ResiliencyAlways-on retries and failover to another provider serving the same model, optional backup models, with the same budgets and guardrails appliedLoad balancing, fallbacks, and retries across deployments
Response cachingPolicy-scoped exact and semantic cache, both with Monitor only before ServeExact and semantic caching on Redis, Qdrant, S3, and others
Spend record and chargebackAttributed spend record by team, app, environment, and your own fields, with chargeback, AI unit economics, and FOCUS exportSpend per key, team, user, and tag
Use models without provider keysManaged credits at provider list prices, or bring your own keysBring your own provider keys
Full request latency (p95)p95 7–9msNot published as a policy-on measurement
Where Cloptima fits

When Cloptima is the better fit

Governance That Starts Closed

Every request needs a policy you bound, so a new app is a visible error, not a quiet new cost. Guardrails, budgets, and tool rules live in that one policy.

Protect Data Without Breaking Apps

Personal data is redacted before the provider sees it and restored to the original text in the response, so customer-facing answers, agent tool calls, and structured output keep working.

Nothing To Operate

Use the hosted gateway, or run a private edge gateway in your VPC with the same rules. No proxy fleet, database, or cache to run yourself.

FAQ

Questions teams ask

Put your first governed call through in five minutes

Point your SDK at the gateway, bind a policy, and watch the first call land on the ledger.

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