Looking for a LiteLLM alternative with managed billing and one prepaid balance?
Astrodyne is a hosted, OpenAI-compatible AI gateway. There is no proxy for you to deploy and no separate provider account to hold: you top up one prepaid balance, call models by name, and see the cost of every request.
Self-hosted proxy vs hosted gateway
These are different shapes of solution, and which is right depends on what you want to own. A self-hosted proxy gives you full control of the process and keeps your provider relationships and keys your own. A hosted gateway removes the process and the relationships, and with them the reconciliation work at the end of the month.
- Who runs it — you, or the provider of the gateway
- Who holds the provider accounts and keys
- Who receives and reconciles the provider invoices
- Where usage and cost reporting comes from
- What happens operationally when a provider has an outage
What Astrodyne emphasises
Managed billing and cost legibility. One prepaid balance instead of an invoice per provider, a charge attached to each individual request, and a balance that functions as a hard spending limit rather than a number you reconcile afterwards.
Why can Astrodyne cost less?
Astrodyne aggregates demand and maintains the provider relationships behind one API. That lets eligible accounts access commercial terms normally associated with larger buyers, without negotiating each provider relationship themselves. Availability and pricing advantages vary by model.
Frequently asked questions
What is Astrodyne?
Astrodyne is an OpenAI-compatible AI gateway. You call leading model families through one API, one account and one prepaid balance, and see the cost of every request individually.
How does Astrodyne compare with LiteLLM?
The main structural difference is deployment and billing: Astrodyne is hosted and holds one prepaid balance, where a self-hosted proxy is run by you against your own provider accounts. Compare on who operates the software, who holds the provider relationships, and where cost reporting comes from. We do not publish claims about another project's current feature set — check it directly.
Do I need to run anything to use Astrodyne?
No. It is a hosted API. You change a base URL and a key in your existing OpenAI-compatible client.
Do I still need my own provider accounts?
No. Astrodyne holds the provider relationships and you hold one prepaid balance with Astrodyne.
Is Astrodyne OpenAI-compatible?
Yes. Point an OpenAI-compatible client at the Astrodyne base URL with an Astrodyne API key. Streaming, tool calls and the response shape are unchanged, so the migration is a base URL and a key.