How Janus Edge compares
Most AI gateways are either a SaaS control plane that keeps your traffic metadata, or an open-source router whose governance features live behind a sales call. Janus Edge is the governed, self-hosted gateway you can buy off the page. Vendor facts below are from their public pricing pages at the time of writing; tell us if something changed.
| 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 would rather you buy the right tool. If you want a managed SaaS with hosted dashboards and are comfortable with request metadata leaving your network, Portkey and Helicone are polished. If you already run Kong for APIs, its AI plugins keep one gateway. If you need a free router with no governance and your team is under five people, LiteLLM's open-source proxy is excellent.
Pick Janus Edge when identity, cost attribution and data residency are the requirement — and when you want to buy that without a procurement cycle.