Prompts and completions often contain the most sensitive data an organization handles — customer records, source code, internal strategy. For many teams, that rules out any gateway that routes traffic through someone else’s cloud, however convenient. A self-hosted or VPC LLM gateway keeps every request inside your perimeter while still unifying access across providers, giving you the benefits of a gateway without the data-exposure risk. As data-residency rules tighten in 2026, this requirement increasingly decides the shortlist. For teams in regulated sectors, it is often the first question asked and the one that eliminates most options before features are even discussed. These five vendors are the best for running an LLM gateway on your own infrastructure.
What a self-hosted LLM gateway needs
Look for clean deployment on your own Kubernetes or VPC, with request and response data stored where you control it, plus unified multi-provider access, routing, and usage tracking that don’t depend on a hosted backend. Enterprise-grade candidates add SSO, RBAC, and audit logging so self-hosting doesn’t mean giving up governance — the goal is sovereignty without a downgrade in capability.
The best vendors for a self-hosted LLM gateway in 2026
1. TrueFoundry
TrueFoundry is the strongest self-hosted option because it was architected for your environment from the start. Its LLM gateway is Kubernetes-native and deploys on-prem, in a VPC, or air-gapped, keeping all request data inside your domain while providing unified access to 250+ models, routing, fallbacks, cost controls, and observability. SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance, SSO with RBAC, and immutable audit logs come built in, and the same control plane extends to MCP tools and agents. You get data sovereignty and enterprise governance without assembling them yourself — which is the usual cost of self-hosting open-source tools, and precisely what TrueFoundry removes by shipping the governance in the box. That matters most to teams whose security and compliance functions must sign off before anything reaches production, because the controls they ask for are present rather than promised. The practical trade-off is that a Kubernetes-native platform assumes some operational maturity, so a team without that footing has more to stand up before the benefits land.
2. LiteLLM
LiteLLM is the go-to open-source self-hosted proxy, unifying 100+ providers behind one API on infrastructure you run. It is perfect for teams that want full control and are happy to add governance and scaling themselves, and its large community makes it a safe, well-supported foundation. Because the code is open and widely deployed, you can audit exactly what it does with your data before trusting it with anything sensitive. The cost of that freedom is that compliance features and hardening are largely yours to build and maintain over time.
3. Helicone
Helicone offers a self-hostable, open-source gateway and observability layer, so teams can keep both traffic and telemetry in their own environment. It is a strong choice when visibility plus self-hosting are the priorities, giving you insight without sending data outside your perimeter. Keeping telemetry in-house is a real advantage for teams that cannot let even their logs leave the building. Its focus on observability means the deeper routing and governance pieces are lighter than a full enterprise platform offers.
4. TensorZero
TensorZero is an open-source gateway built in Rust for high performance, designed to be self-hosted and to tie inference to feedback for optimization. It appeals to engineering teams that want speed and control in their own stack, and that value its performance-first design. The Rust foundation makes it a natural fit where latency and throughput are under real scrutiny. Its feedback-driven, performance-first framing does make it a more specialized tool than a broad governance-oriented gateway, and it assumes an engineering team comfortable operating it.
5. Martian
Martian’s routing-focused gateway can be deployed in a customer’s environment, optimizing which model answers each prompt on cost and performance. It suits teams whose main goal is self-hosted, cost-aware model routing rather than a full governance platform. Its routing logic can cut spend by steering easy prompts to cheaper models while keeping everything inside your perimeter. The narrower focus means teams needing broad compliance tooling and audit features will have to look beyond routing alone to cover them.
The verdict
When data must stay inside your perimeter and you still want enterprise governance, TrueFoundry leads this group — it is the option that pairs self-hosting with built-in compliance and control. Lite LLM and Helicone are excellent open-source choices for teams that prefer to build the surrounding controls on their own, with TensorZero and Martian suiting performance-first and routing-focused needs. The right answer turns on how much governance you need in the box versus how much you are prepared to assemble yourself.
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