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Top 5 LLM Gateways for Production in 2026 (A Deep, Practical Comparison)

Hadil Ben Abdallah on February 12, 2026

If you’re building with LLMs in 2026, the hard part is no longer “Which model should we use?” It’s everything around the model. Latency spikes. P...
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Anmol Baranwal

anything self-hosted brings a lot of trust! 🔥

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Exactly! Self-hosting definitely gives teams more control and transparency, especially when AI is on the critical path. You know where your traffic goes, how it’s routed, and how costs are enforced.
Of course, it comes with responsibility too… but for many teams, that tradeoff is worth it. 🔥

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Dev Monster

I like that you didn’t just list features but framed everything around real production pain: latency, governance, outages, and cost control. The comparison feels practical instead of theoretical, especially the part about how behavior changes under sustained load.
Super useful for teams trying to think beyond “it works locally” and plan for actual scale. 🔥

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thank you so much!

That was exactly the goal. A lot of tools look similar on paper, but production has a way of exposing the cracks, especially under sustained load. “It works locally” is a very different story from “it survives real traffic.”

Really glad the practical angle came through.

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Aditya

This is a good article for people who are trying to explore ai gateway infra.🔥

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thank you so much! I really appreciate that 😍

That’s exactly who I had in mind while writing it; engineers trying to make sense of the infra side, not just the models. AI gets exciting fast, but the gateway layer is where things either stay smooth or get painful.

Glad you found it useful! 💙

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Ben Abdallah Hanadi

Great breakdown. I like how you moved the conversation from which model to the operational reality around latency, routing, and cost control

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thank you so much! 😍

I feel like we’ve spent the last year obsessing over model comparisons, but in real systems, the operational layer is what actually determines whether things run smoothly or become a constant headache.

Glad that shift in focus resonated with you.

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Aida Said

Very informative. Thanks @hadil

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

You're welcome! Glad you found it informative

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Julien Avezou

I really appreciate the quick comparison table. Nice and informative post!

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thank you so much! 😍

I’m glad the comparison table helped. I always appreciate when I can quickly scan something before diving deeper, so I tried to make it useful at a glance.

Really happy you found it informative!

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Mahdi Jazini

Great breakdown. I especially liked the focus on real production concerns like latency, governance, and cost attribution instead of just feature comparisons. Many teams still treat LLM gateways as optional tooling, but at scale they clearly become core infrastructure. The point about planning for future RPS rather than current load is particularly important.