envoyproxy/ai-gateway

Envoy AI Gateway occupies a strategic position by leveraging the industry-standard Envoy Proxy. Unlike Python-based wrappers like LiteLLM which prioritize ease of use and rapid integration, this project targets infrastructure-grade deployment, offering the performance and security characteristics required by large enterprises. Its defensibility (7) is derived from its association with the official envoyproxy organization and its integration with the Envoy Gateway (K8s) ecosystem, creating significant 'gravity' for teams already using Envoy for their service mesh. With ~1500 stars and 200 forks over 1.5 years, it shows healthy, though not explosive, adoption typical of low-level infrastructure. The primary threat comes from cloud providers (AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry) who are building verticalized gateways, and specialized startups like Portkey or Kong. However, for organizations requiring a cloud-neutral, self-hosted, high-throughput gateway, this project is becoming the reference implementation. The high platform domination risk reflects the fact that hyperscalers want to own the 'AI ingress' point, but Envoy's open-source, vendor-neutral nature provides a durable moat against total capture.