How Janus Edge compares
Most AI gateways fall into one of two camps. Some are hosted services that keep your traffic metadata; others are open-source routers whose governance features are only available after a sales call. Janus Edge is a governed, self-hosted gateway that you can buy straight from this site. The details below come from each vendor's public pricing page; if something has changed, please let us know.
| Janus Edge | LiteLLM | Portkey | Kong AI Gateway | TrueFoundry | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted with SSO/SCIM, purchasable online | Yes — Business, per seat | Enterprise, contact sales | Enterprise, contact sales | Enterprise, contact sales | Enterprise, contact sales | Enterprise, contact sales |
| Pricing metric | Per active user, flat annual | Annual capacity license | Per 100k logs + enterprise | Per gateway + per request + per model | Per user + per request | Per request + GB |
| Cost tied to your AI spend | Never | No | Log volume | Request volume | Request volume | Request volume |
| Free tier for small teams, self-hosted | 25 users, all core features | OSS; SSO ≤5 users | OSS router only | OSS proxy, basic plugins | SaaS only, 3 users | OSS |
| Per-person model grants | Yes | Yes | Workspace level | Consumer level | Yes | Observability focus |
| Metering incl. cached / cache-write tokens | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Guardrails self-hosted (Prompt Guard, Llama Guard) | Included; enforcement in Business | Callbacks; enterprise for scoping | Cloud guardrails | Enterprise plugins | Built-in | — |
| Prompts stored by default | No | Configurable | Logged (SaaS) | Configurable | Logged | Logged |
| Air-gap / offline license | Enterprise | Enterprise | — | Enterprise | Enterprise | — |
| Source available | ELv2, full source | MIT + proprietary enterprise dir | Router MIT; control plane closed | Apache core; enterprise closed | Closed | Apache-2.0 |
| Deployment | Linux binary, Docker, source-built Compose | Docker, Helm | Docker (router) | Docker, Helm, VM | Managed / VPC | Docker, Helm |
LiteLLM, Portkey, Kong, TrueFoundry and Helicone are trademarks of their respective owners. Comparison reflects public pricing pages reviewed September 2026.
When to pick something else
We'd rather you end up with the right tool. If you want a hosted service with managed dashboards and you're comfortable with request metadata leaving your network, Portkey and Helicone are both polished. If you already run Kong for your APIs, its AI plugins let you keep a single gateway. And if you just need a free router without governance for a team of fewer than five, LiteLLM's open-source proxy is excellent.
Janus Edge is the better fit when identity, cost attribution and keeping data on your network are requirements, and you'd like to buy that without going through a long procurement process.