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GoModel vs Bifrost

The closest match on this site. Bifrost is Maxim AI's open-source gateway, also written in Go, with a similar feature set. The differences are tail latency, memory, and which features need an enterprise license.

Get started with GoModel See the benchmark

2.8×

lower p99 latency

6.9 ms vs 18.9 ms

3.9×

less memory

74 MB vs 290 MB

8.0×

faster cold start

0.8 s vs 6.5 s

2.2×

more throughput

4,498 req/s vs 2,079 req/s

The benchmark

A gateway sits on every request, so its overhead adds up. Same machine, same mock backend, one gateway at a time.

Median latency

p50, chat completions · lower is better

1.9× faster

GoModel2.2 ms

Bifrost4.2 ms

Tail latency

p99, chat completions · lower is better

2.8× lower

GoModel6.9 ms

Bifrost18.9 ms

Time to first token

p50, streaming chat · lower is better

2.4× faster

GoModel5.0 ms

Bifrost11.9 ms

Throughput

peak sustained · higher is better

2.2× more

GoModel4,498 req/s

Bifrost2,079 req/s

Memory

peak RAM · lower is better

3.9× less

GoModel74 MB

Bifrost290 MB

Cold start

container start to first request · lower is better

8.0× faster

GoModel0.8 s

Bifrost6.5 s

Docker image

compressed pull size · lower is better

4.1× smaller

GoModel21 MB

Bifrost85 MB

GoModel 0.1.98 vs Bifrost 2.2.3 on an AWS c7i.large (2 vCPU, 4 GiB), run 20260928-043817 (28 September 2026). 20,000 requests per workload at concurrency 10, five randomized trials. API workloads served: GoModel 6/6, Bifrost 6/6. Retries, GoModel's circuit breaker, and per-request logging were off on both. Rerun it with one command.

Beyond speed

Similar core features. GoModel keeps guardrails free; Bifrost has more in its enterprise tier.

	GoModel	Bifrost
Guardrails	Free, MIT	Enterprise license
Budgets, rate limits, per-user API keys	Free	Free
Role-based access control	Not yet; per-user model allowlists	Enterprise license
Prompt management	Playground, no prompt versioning	Playground and versioned prompt repository
Multi-node	Replicas on a shared DB; per-node rate limits	Cluster mode, Enterprise license
SSO	OIDC in Pro, per-company license, no seat cap	SAML and OIDC, Enterprise quote
Providers	34	31
License	MIT core + commercial Pro	Apache 2.0 core + commercial Enterprise

Which one fits?

An honest split.

Pick GoModel if

You need prompt, response, and streaming guardrails without an enterprise license.
Tail latency, memory, or cold start matter on small nodes.
You want SSO under a per-company Pro license with no seat cap.
You want to configure everything with env vars alone.

Pick Bifrost if

You already use Maxim AI for evals or observability.
You want a versioned prompt repository inside the gateway.
You need SAML SSO, RBAC, or clustered rate limits and can buy Bifrost Enterprise.

Try it against your own workload

Benchmarks are an argument; your traffic is the proof. GoModel speaks the OpenAI and Anthropic APIs natively, so pointing an existing app at it is a base-URL change.

1 · Run GoModel

docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 \
  -e LOG_FORMAT=text \
  -e OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key" \
  enterpilot/gomodel

2 · Point your SDK at it

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8080/v1",
    api_key="your-gomodel-key",
)

Full setup, providers, and configuration live in the documentation. Questions? Ask on Discord or book a 30-minute call.