# Antseed vs LiteLLM

> LiteLLM scores 62.4 (B) to Antseed's 54.1 (C) for model routing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-litellm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-litellm.md (~5,450 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

LiteLLM scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 54.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing. Both do model routing.

- Antseed: grade C, 54.1/100, rank #915 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/antseed.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json
- LiteLLM: grade B, 62.4/100, rank #557 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/litellm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/litellm.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 830 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Antseed (C)

Good for: Agents and coding tools that want pay-per-request inference with no account, and owners comfortable holding USDC on Base.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 70 against 60

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The buyer proxy copied client credential headers to sellers until v0.2.58 (12 October 2026), with no published advisory

### LiteLLM (B)

Good for: Teams that want one OpenAI-compatible endpoint over many providers on their own infrastructure, with per-key budgets, model allowlists and an MCP gateway.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 52
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 56
- Security & auth, 72 against 45

Watch for: litellm 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on PyPI carried a credential stealer for about 40 minutes on 24 March 2026


## Why the edge

### Schema & documentation: LiteLLM +36

- Antseed (55): No OpenAPI document found in the repository or docs. The proxy copies the OpenAI and Anthropic wire formats (0 of 25). llms.txt at antseed.com/llms.txt and a setup skill at /skill.md (10). The API guide states what each route is for, how routing picks a seller and when to pin one (14 of 20). Request bodies follow the upstream formats, and `/v1/models` reports context length, modalities, tool use and supported parameters per seller (8 of 15). Curl examples for each format and an error table with status, code, meaning and fix (13 of 15). A public changelog and tagged releases, with recent entries under an undated Unreleased heading (10 of 15). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.
- LiteLLM (91): Every gateway serves Swagger at /, ReDoc at /redoc and the raw schema at /openapi.json, and the docs host a public Swagger explorer (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page via `.md` (10). Pages say what a feature is for and where its limits are, and the key-auth page explains how permissions are inherited and where they aren't, but the reference is very large for a model to navigate (16 of 20). OpenAI-shaped request schemas from Pydantic models, with `metadata`, `litellm_params` and config blocks left as free-form objects (10 of 15). A full error reference with the envelope, every status, response headers and how to tell gateway limits from provider limits, plus examples on every page (15). Release notes per version with dates, newest v1.108.0 and v1.106.7 on 4 November 2026 (15).

### Security & auth: LiteLLM +27

- Antseed (45): Model reading. The local proxy has no key and binds to 127.0.0.1. One secp256k1 key is identity and wallet, stored in plain text by the CLI unless supplied by environment variable, and encrypted by the OS keychain in the desktop app. Spending is bounded by a deposit contract, a capped ReserveAuth per seller and an optional separate withdrawal wallet, and gateway keys are hashed, revocable and spend-limited (18 of 30). Sellers are independent, and the FAQ says a standard seller can read prompts and sets its own practices (5 of 20). No central log, and an optional TEE-verified route with attestation checked on the buyer's machine (8 of 15). Seller, token and cost headers per response, `antseed buyer metering` and a Prometheus exporter (12 of 15). The buyer proxy stopped forwarding client credentials to sellers in v0.2.58 (12 October 2026). No SECURITY.md in the 4 November clone; no security.txt, published advisory, bug bounty, certification or contract audit report found. The repository holds one automated review of the buyer proxy dated 8 March 2026 (2 of 20). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.
- LiteLLM (72): Read with the tool checklist for self-hosted software. Virtual keys are hashed, revocable and blockable, with model, route, MCP server, budget, rate and expiry limits, and a `proxy_admin_viewer` read-only role exists. Rotation with a grace period is Enterprise only, so 25, less 10 because the docs pass a key as `?key=` on `/key/info` and on the Claude Code marketplace manifest (15 of 30). `allowed_routes`, MCP permissions by key and team, an approval queue for submitted MCP servers and stdio MCP servers off by default from 1.104.0 (15 of 20). Guardrails can run before a model call and on MCP tool results, and an OWASP LLM Top 10 page maps each risk to a control, but prompt-injection detectors such as Lakera need an Enterprise licence and all of it is off by default (12 of 15). Request and spend logs per key in the open-source build; audit logs of admin actions are Enterprise only (12 of 15). security.md with GitHub private reporting, a bug bounty from $500 to $3,000 for P0 and P1 reports, a security announcements list, SOC 2 Type II per the data security page, CodeQL, OSV and Scorecard workflows, and advisories published on GitHub. No security.txt, and reports without a video are closed unread (18 of 20).

### Agent ergonomics: LiteLLM +23

- Antseed (56): Model reading, as for other routers. Tool use and structured output depend on the seller, and the model list reports both per seller with conservative model-level values (12 of 20 and 8 of 15). Cached-input pricing is advertised per seller where supported (8 of 15). Context length is reported per model as the lowest value across sellers (10 of 15). No batch route found (0 of 10). No SDK of its own for buyers. OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs work against the proxy, and wrappers launch Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode (5 of 10). Documented error codes with fixes, and cost and seller headers on non-streaming responses (13 of 15). Docs per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because the terms of 9 October 2026 bar scripts that scrape or mine data from the Offerings, which include the documentation.
- LiteLLM (79): Read with the API lines for the gateway an agent calls. Responses size through the usual `max_tokens` and streaming, and the MCP gateway can replace a large tool catalogue with four virtual tools (tool search) or filter tools by semantic relevance, which cuts context cost (20 of 25). Key, team and spend listings page and filter, though we didn't check every list call (15 of 20). Errors keep the OpenAI envelope with a string `code`, gateway 429s carry `retry-after`, `rate_limit_type` and `reset_at`, management routes answer RFC 9457 problem+json, and a table says which errors are safe to retry (20). Retries, cooldowns and fallbacks run inside the gateway and the docs say which errors to retry, but there are no idempotency keys for the management writes (12 of 20). Any OpenAI or Anthropic SDK works by changing the base URL, but the only first-party client is the Python SDK, and keys and spend need Postgres and a master key before the first call (12 of 15).

### Reliability: LiteLLM +18

- Antseed (52): Read with the local-software lines, since the buyer runs the proxy. Official npm package @antseed/cli with Node.js 20 or later stated, plus desktop installers (20). Public CI on main runs the unit tests, an end-to-end suite and a payment flow (ci.yml in the clone), but the run results on GitHub couldn't be read on 4 November, so 15 of 25. Open issues and pull requests per the 8 October count (74 and 32), with bug reports from late September open then and reply times not sampled (12 of 25). CHANGELOG.md calls out breaking CLI changes, but versions are 0.x patch bumps and recent entries sit under one Unreleased heading (5 of 15). Release tag v0.2.72 and CLI 0.1.220 at that tag, with no statement of stability (0). Whether a request is answered also depends on which sellers are online, which this checklist doesn't score.
- LiteLLM (70): Read with the local-software lines, since the gateway runs on the operator's hardware and BerriAI hosts nothing an agent calls. litellm on PyPI states Python 3.10 to 3.14, and the gateway ships as a Docker image, a Helm chart and Terraform modules, with GHCR images signed by cosign (20). 51 GitHub Actions workflows plus a CircleCI config cover unit, proxy-database, end-to-end, chaos, mutation and UI tests. The GitHub API was rate-limited for our reader on 6 November and Actions pages refused it on 6 October, so we couldn't confirm main is passing (15 of 25). The issue tracker showed 1,674 open issues on 6 November, with eight bug reports among the 15 newest, seven of them with a reply, against a project that tags several releases a day (10 of 25, down from an unchecked 12). Release notes carry breaking-change bullets, but breaking changes land in weekly minor releases on the 1.x line, so version numbers don't signal them (10 of 15). 1.108.1, past 1.0 (15).

### Payments & pricing: Antseed +10

- Antseed (70): x402 v2 exists only on `POST /v1/key/topup` of a gateway the owner runs, and is off until enabled per key. Inference is paid through Antseed's own HTTP 402 flow with EIP-712 signatures and USDC channels on Base, which isn't one of the three protocols the rubric names (10 of 40, a judgement call). PRICING.md in the repository says seller prices per 1M tokens are published without authentication at a cached endpoint and live through `antseed network browse --json` (20); the 8 October snapshot figures came from that JSON endpoint and are struck. Free models answer with no card and no account, per the docs on 8 October (20). An agent can install the CLI, get a key generated locally and fund it by a USDC transfer, with no sign-up flow (20). The self-hosted rule gives the same three lines for the free software.
- LiteLLM (60): Read with the self-hosted rule, since an agent uses the free gateway and Enterprise is a sales-led licence for the same software. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). MIT with no account and no card, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines. Model calls cost what the operator's provider keys cost.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Antseed | LiteLLM | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 52 | 70 | LiteLLM +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 91 | LiteLLM +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 79 | LiteLLM +23 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 72 | LiteLLM +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 70 | 60 | Antseed +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 82 | LiteLLM +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 63 | LiteLLM +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -12 | |
| **Total** | | **54.1 · C** | **62.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Antseed | LiteLLM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model router |
| Vendor | Antseed Foundation | BerriAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field | MIT, except the enterprise/ directory, which is under its own licence and needs an Enterprise licence key |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-15 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | 106 stars, 1.8k npm/wk | 63k stars, 22.5M PyPI/wk |

## How the scores have moved

### Antseed

- -1.0 on 4 November 2026: security, new evidence

### LiteLLM

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Antseed.** A buyer needs no account. The CLI creates a wallet key, free models answer at once and paid ones draw on deposited USDC, with seller, tokens and cost in response headers. Sellers are unvetted and can read prompts unless TEE-verified, the proxy forwarded client credentials to them until 12 October 2026 with no advisory, and every package is pre-1.0.

**LiteLLM.** An MIT-licensed gateway that puts 100+ model providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API, with virtual keys, budgets, fallbacks and an MCP gateway, released several times a week. Its security record is the main limitation. Two PyPI releases carried a credential stealer on 24 March 2026, and 30 GitHub advisories followed in 12 months, five of them critical.

## Before you call either

### Antseed

1. Send a placeholder key such as `antseed-p2p`, and run v0.2.58 or later, which stops credential headers reaching sellers.
2. Call `GET /v1/models` first and request a concrete id. The `antseed` alias works only when the desktop app has a model selected
3. Handle 402 `insufficient_deposits` by reading `suggestedAmount`, then fund the address from `antseed buyer deposit` with USDC on Base
4. Pass `--verifiers antseed-verifier --require-verifier` to `antseed buyer start` when prompts are private, so only TEE-verified sellers are routed
5. Read `x-antseed-peer-id` and `x-antseed-estimated-cost-usd` on each response, and pin a seller with `<peerId>@<model>` when the same one must answer

### LiteLLM

1. Pin an exact litellm version or image digest, verify the cosign signature, and never install an unpinned latest in CI
2. Give each agent a virtual key limited to its models, routes and MCP servers, with a budget and an expiry
3. Treat a 429 with `retry-after` as the gateway's own limit and wait that long; a 429 without it came from the provider
4. Set `NO_DOCS`, `NO_REDOC` and `NO_OPENAPI` to True in production, and use the `-non_root` image variant
5. Set `LITELLM_LOCAL_MODEL_COST_MAP=True` where egress is blocked, since start-up otherwise fetches the price map from GitHub

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Antseed or LiteLLM?

LiteLLM scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 54.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Antseed and LiteLLM need an API key?

Antseed needs no key. LiteLLM needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Antseed and LiteLLM without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Antseed. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiteLLM.

### Are Antseed and LiteLLM open source?

Yes. Antseed is open source (GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field). LiteLLM is open source (MIT, except the enterprise/ directory, which is under its own licence and needs an Enterprise licence key).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-litellm.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-litellm.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "antseed", "b": "litellm"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare antseed litellm`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/litellm.json

## Other comparisons with Antseed or LiteLLM

- [Amazon Bedrock vs Antseed](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-vs-antseed.md)
- [Claude API vs Antseed](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-antseed.md)
- [Antseed vs Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-azure-openai.md)
- [Antseed vs BlockRun.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-blockrun-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs Cerebras Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cerebras-inference.md)
- [Antseed vs Cloudflare Workers AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-workers-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs Cohere Chat API (Command models)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cohere-chat.md)
- [Antseed vs DeepInfra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-deepinfra.md)
- [Antseed vs DeepSeek API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-deepseek-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Glimpse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-elorian-glimpse.md)
- [Antseed vs Fireworks AI Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-fireworks-inference.md)
- [Antseed vs Gemini Developer API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-gemini-api.md)
- [Antseed vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-groq.md)
- [Antseed vs Inkling 2 Small](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-inkling-2-small.md)
- [Antseed vs Jais 3](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-jais-3.md)
- [Antseed vs Meta Model API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-meta-model-api.md)
- [Antseed vs MiniMax API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-minimax-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Muse Spark Open](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-muse-spark-open.md)
- [Antseed vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl.md)
- [Antseed vs Novita AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-novita-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs OpenAI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-openai-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [Antseed vs Beam 1.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-reflection-beam.md)
- [Antseed vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Antseed vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-siliconflow.md)
- [Antseed vs Simplismart](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-simplismart.md)
- [Antseed vs StepFun API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-stepfun-api.md)
- [Antseed vs SWE-2 Flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-swe-2-flash.md)
- [Antseed vs Together AI Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-together-inference.md)
- [Antseed vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-vertex-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs xAI API (Grok)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-xai-api.md)
- [Antseed vs Cloudflare AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.md)
- [Antseed vs Eden AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-eden-ai.md)
- [Antseed vs Hugging Face Inference Providers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-hugging-face-inference-providers.md)
- [Antseed vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-openrouter.md)
- [Antseed vs Router.com (Ramp Router)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-ramp-router.md)
- [Antseed vs RouterPlus](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-routerplus.md)
- [Antseed vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-tencent-tokenhub.md)
- [Antseed vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs LiteLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-litellm.md)
- [Eden AI vs LiteLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eden-ai-vs-litellm.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Providers vs LiteLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hugging-face-inference-providers-vs-litellm.md)
- [LiteLLM vs OpenRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/litellm-vs-openrouter.md)
- [LiteLLM vs Router.com (Ramp Router)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/litellm-vs-ramp-router.md)
- [LiteLLM vs RouterPlus](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/litellm-vs-routerplus.md)
- [LiteLLM vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/litellm-vs-tencent-tokenhub.md)
- [LiteLLM vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/litellm-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp