Pomerium Alternatives 2025: Top 10
Updated November 2025
If you’re evaluating Pomerium alternatives, this guide maps the landscape like a builder would. First, we clarify what Pomerium’s Agentic Access Gateway is—an identity- and policy-forward access layer for agent/LLM traffic—then we compare the 10 best Pomerium alternatives. We place ShareAI first for teams that want one API across many providers, transparent marketplace data (price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type) before routing, instant failover, and people-powered economics (70% of spend flows to providers who keep models online).
Quick links — Browse Models · Open Playground · Create API Key · API Reference · User Guide · Releases · Sign in / Sign up
What Pomerium Agentic Access Gateway is (and isn’t)
Pomerium sits in the gateway/governance lane. It centralizes credentials and policy, enforces access decisions, and exposes observability so each AI/agent endpoint can be lifecycle-managed like an API. That’s a strong fit when identity, SSO, and policy compliance are your first priorities.
It’s not a marketplace that shows price/latency/uptime/availability/provider type before you route, nor does it natively provide multi-provider smart routing and instant failover. If you want those capabilities, you’ll pair a gateway with a provider-agnostic aggregator like ShareAI.
Aggregators vs Gateways vs Agent platforms
- LLM aggregators: one API across many providers with pre-route transparency (price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type) plus smart routing/failover to balance cost and UX.
- AI/Access gateways: policy & governance at the edge (credentials, SSO, rate limits, guardrails) with observability; you bring the providers. Pomerium is in this category.
- Agent/chatbot platforms: packaged UX (memory/tools/channels) to build assistants. They are not marketplaces and often assume a single upstream.
How we evaluated the best Pomerium alternatives
- Model breadth & neutrality: proprietary + open; easy switching; no rewrites.
- Latency & resilience: routing policies; timeouts/retries; instant failover.
- Governance & security: key handling, SSO, scopes, regional routing.
- Observability: logs/traces; cost & latency dashboards.
- Pricing transparency & TCO: pick routes with eyes-open.
- Developer experience: docs, SDKs, quickstarts; time-to-first-token.
- Community & economics: does your spend grow supply (e.g., incentives for GPU owners)?
Top 10 Pomerium alternatives
#1 — ShareAI (People-Powered AI API)
What it is. A multi-provider API with a transparent marketplace and smart routing. With one integration, you can browse a large catalog of models/providers, compare price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type, and route with instant failover. Economics are people-powered: 70% of every dollar flows to providers (community or company) who keep models online.
Why it’s #1 here. If you want provider-agnostic aggregation with pre-route transparency and resilience, ShareAI is the direct fit. Keep a gateway if you need org-wide policies; add ShareAI for marketplace-guided routing.
- One API → 150+ models across many providers; no rewrites, no lock-in.
- Transparent marketplace: choose by price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type.
- Resilience by default: routing policies + instant failover.
- Fair economics: 70% of spend goes to providers (community or company).
Quick links — Browse Models · Open Playground · Create API Key · API Reference · User Guide · Releases
For providers: earn by keeping models online. Anyone can become a ShareAI provider—Community or Company. Onboard via Windows, Ubuntu, macOS, or Docker. Contribute idle-time bursts or run always-on. Choose your incentive: Rewards (money), Exchange (tokens/AI Prosumer), or Mission (donate a % to NGOs). As you scale, you can set your own inference prices and gain preferential exposure. Provider Dashboard.
#2 — OpenRouter
What it is. A unified API across many models—excellent for quick experiments and broad catalog access.
Where it fits. Use it when you want a single key and a wide menu of models. Add ShareAI when you need pre-route transparency and instant failover to control TCO and UX.
#3 — Traefik AI Gateway
What it is. AI egress governance on top of Traefik Hub with specialized middlewares and OTel-friendly observability.
Where it fits. Great when you need centralized policies, credentials, and traces at the edge. Pair with ShareAI to get marketplace routing across many providers.
#4 — Kong AI Gateway
What it is. Enterprise gateway with deep plugins, policies, and analytics.
Where it fits. Use for edge policy depth; combine with ShareAI for provider-agnostic routing and marketplace visibility.
#5 — Portkey
What it is. AI gateway emphasizing guardrails, governance, and detailed traces—popular in regulated environments.
Where it fits. Add ShareAI for transparent provider selection and failover if you want to balance safety with cost/latency.
#6 — Eden AI
What it is. Aggregator across LLMs and broader AI (vision/TTS/translation).
Where it fits. Useful for multi-capability projects. If you need pre-route transparency and resilience across many providers, ShareAI provides that view and routing control.
#7 — LiteLLM
What it is. Lightweight SDK + self-hostable proxy that speaks an OpenAI-compatible interface.
Where it fits. Great for DIY dev flow. Keep it for development; use ShareAI for managed routing and marketplace data in production.
#8 — Unify
What it is. Quality-oriented routing and evaluation to pick better models per prompt.
Where it fits. Pair with ShareAI for broader provider coverage and live marketplace stats when cost/latency/uptime matter.
#9 — Apache APISIX
What it is. General-purpose, high-performance API gateway with rich plugins.
Where it fits. Ideal for DIY edge control; add ShareAI when you need transparent multi-provider LLM routing rather than hard-coding a single upstream.
#10 — NGINX
What it is. Battle-tested web tier you can extend for LLM traffic (custom routing, token enforcement, caching).
Where it fits. For less bespoke glue and more transparent provider choice, pair your NGINX front with ShareAI.
Pomerium vs ShareAI (quick take)
If you need one API over many providers with transparent pricing/latency/uptime and instant failover, choose ShareAI. If your top requirement is egress governance—centralized credentials, identity-aware access, and OTel-friendly observability—Pomerium fits that lane. Many teams pair them: gateway for org policy + ShareAI for marketplace routing.
Quick comparison
| Platform | Who it serves | Model breadth | Governance & security | Observability | Routing / failover | Marketplace transparency | Provider program |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShareAI | Product/platform teams needing one API + fair economics | 150+ models, many providers | API keys & per-route controls | Console usage + marketplace stats | Smart routing + instant failover | Yes (price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type) | Yes — open supply; 70% to providers |
| Pomerium | Teams wanting identity-aware egress governance | BYO providers | Centralized credentials/policies (gateway-first) | OTel-friendly patterns | Conditional routing via policy | No (infra tool, not a marketplace) | n/a |
| OpenRouter | Devs wanting one key | Wide catalog | Basic API controls | App-side | Fallbacks | Partial | n/a |
| Portkey | Regulated/enterprise teams | Broad | Guardrails & governance | Deep traces | Conditional routing | Partial | n/a |
| Kong AI Gateway | Enterprises needing gateway-level policy | BYO | Strong edge policies/plugins | Analytics | Proxy/plugins, retries | No (infra) | n/a |
| Eden AI | Teams needing LLM + other AI services | Broad | Standard controls | Varies | Fallbacks/caching | Partial | n/a |
| LiteLLM | DIY/self-host proxy | Many providers | Config/key limits | Your infra | Retries/fallback | n/a | n/a |
| Unify | Quality-driven teams | Multi-model | Standard API security | Platform analytics | Best-model selection | n/a | n/a |
| Apache APISIX | Enterprises / DIY | BYO | Policies | Add-ons | Custom | n/a | n/a |
| NGINX | DIY | BYO | Custom | Add-ons | Custom | n/a | n/a |
Pricing & TCO: compare real costs (not just unit prices)
Raw $ / 1K tokens hides the real picture. Effective TCO moves with retries/fallbacks, latency (which affects usage and abandon), provider variance, observability storage, and evaluation runs. A transparent marketplace helps you choose routes that balance cost and UX.
TCO ≈ Σ (Base_tokens × Unit_price × (1 + Retry_rate))
+ Observability_storage
+ Evaluation_tokens
+ Egress- Prototype (~10k tokens/day): Optimize for time-to-first-token — start in the Playground and use quickstarts.
- Mid-scale (~2M tokens/day): Marketplace-guided routing/failover can trim 10–20% while improving UX.
- Spiky workloads: Expect higher effective token costs from retries during failover; budget for it.
Migration guide: moving to ShareAI
From Pomerium
Keep gateway-level policies where they shine; add ShareAI for marketplace routing + instant failover. Pattern: gateway auth/policy → ShareAI route per model → measure marketplace stats → tighten policies as you learn.
From OpenRouter
Map model names, verify prompt parity, then shadow 10% of traffic and ramp 25% → 50% → 100% as latency/error budgets hold. Marketplace data makes provider swaps straightforward.
From LiteLLM
Replace the self-hosted proxy on production routes you don’t want to operate; keep LiteLLM for dev if desired. Compare ops overhead vs. managed routing benefits.
From Unify / Portkey / Kong
Define feature-parity expectations (analytics, guardrails, orchestration, plugins). Many teams run hybrid: keep specialized features where they’re strongest; use ShareAI for transparent provider choice and failover.
Developer quickstart (copy-paste)
These examples use an OpenAI-compatible surface. Replace YOUR_KEY with your ShareAI key — get one at Create API Key. See the API Reference for details.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# cURL (bash) — Chat Completions
# Prereqs:
# export SHAREAI_API_KEY="YOUR_KEY"
curl -X POST "https://api.shareai.now/v1/chat/completions" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SHAREAI_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "llama-3.1-70b",
"messages": [
{ "role": "user", "content": "Give me a short haiku about reliable routing." }
],
"temperature": 0.4,
"max_tokens": 128
}'// JavaScript (fetch) — Node 18+/Edge runtimes
// Prereqs:
// process.env.SHAREAI_API_KEY = "YOUR_KEY"
async function main() {
const res = await fetch("https://api.shareai.now/v1/chat/completions", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.SHAREAI_API_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
model: "llama-3.1-70b",
messages: [
{ role: "user", content: "Give me a short haiku about reliable routing." }
],
temperature: 0.4,
max_tokens: 128
})
});
if (!res.ok) {
console.error("Request failed:", res.status, await res.text());
return;
}
const data = await res.json();
console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));
}
main().catch(console.error);Security, privacy & compliance checklist (vendor-agnostic)
- Key handling: rotation cadence; minimal scopes; environment separation.
- Data retention: where prompts/responses are stored and for how long; redaction defaults.
- PII & sensitive content: masking; access controls; regional routing for data locality.
- Observability: prompt/response logging; ability to filter or pseudonymize; propagate trace IDs consistently (OTel).
- Incident response: escalation paths and provider SLAs.
FAQ — Pomerium vs others (and competitor-vs-competitor)
Pomerium vs ShareAI — which for multi-provider routing?
ShareAI. It’s built for marketplace transparency (price, latency, uptime, availability, provider type) and smart routing/failover across many providers. Pomerium is an egress governance tool (centralized credentials/policy; identity-aware access; OTel-friendly observability). Many teams use both.
Pomerium vs OpenRouter — quick multi-model access or gateway controls?
OpenRouter makes multi-model access quick; Pomerium centralizes policy/observability. If you also want pre-route transparency and instant failover, ShareAI combines multi-provider access with a marketplace view and resilient routing.
Pomerium vs Traefik AI Gateway — two gateways, AI-specific controls
Both are gateways (policies/guardrails/observability). If you also need provider-agnostic routing with transparency, pair the gateway with ShareAI.
Pomerium vs Kong AI Gateway — policy depth and plugins
Kong offers deep edge plugins/policies; Pomerium focuses on identity-aware access. For transparent provider choice and failover, add ShareAI.
Pomerium vs Portkey — who’s stronger on guardrails?
Both emphasize governance and traces; depth/ergonomics differ. If your main need is transparent provider selection and instant failover, use ShareAI alongside either.
Pomerium vs Eden AI — many AI services or egress control?
Eden AI aggregates multiple AI services; Pomerium governs egress. For pricing/latency transparency across many providers, choose ShareAI.
Pomerium vs LiteLLM — self-host proxy or managed governance?
LiteLLM is a DIY proxy; Pomerium is managed governance/observability. If you’d rather not run a proxy and want marketplace-driven routing, choose ShareAI.
Pomerium vs Unify — evaluation-driven vs policy-driven
Unify focuses on evaluation-based model selection; Pomerium on policy/observability. For one API with live marketplace stats, pick ShareAI.
Pomerium vs Apache APISIX — DIY gateway vs identity-aware access
APISIX is a general API gateway; Pomerium centers on identity-aware access. Need transparent multi-provider LLM routing? Use ShareAI.
Pomerium vs NGINX
NGINX is DIY (custom Lua, policies, caching); Pomerium is a packaged access layer. To avoid bespoke glue and still get transparent provider selection, layer in ShareAI.
