freellmapi vs ContextForge MCP Gateway
Two of the top gateways, side by side: score, setup, license, activity and what each review found.
freellmapi
OpenAI-compatible router that fails over across free LLM provider tiers
ContextForge MCP Gateway
Registry and proxy federating MCP, A2A, REST and gRPC behind one endpoint
| What we compare | freellmapi | ContextForge MCP Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Score parts, out of 100 | ||
| Adoption | 76, popular | 24, niche |
| Freshness | 100, active | 100, active |
| Maintenance | 98, healthy | 90, healthy |
| Easy to run | 67, easy | 67, easy |
| Agent-ready | 0, none | 70, partly |
| Facts from GitHub and the README | ||
| Stars | 33.1k | 4.6k |
| License | MIT (permissive) | Apache-2.0 (permissive) |
| Last commit | Oct 2026 | Oct 2026 |
| Last release | Oct 2026 | Sep 2026 |
| Language | TypeScript | Not stated |
| Docker | Yes | Yes |
| GPU | Not needed | Not needed |
| arm64 or Apple Silicon | Mentioned | Mentioned |
freellmapi
FreeLLMAPI exposes one /v1 endpoint (chat, responses, completions, embeddings, images, video, audio) and routes requests across free tiers from 34 providers, plus custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints. Provider keys are AES-256-GCM encrypted in SQLite, per-key RPM/RPD/TPM/TPD counters keep requests under quotas, and a 429 or 5xx triggers fallover to the next model. It also serves Anthropic Messages, Gemini and opt-in Ollama surfaces, and ships a React dashboard and desktop apps.
Who it is for: Developers stacking free LLM tiers behind one endpoint for coding agents or apps
Strengths
- Also speaks Anthropic, Gemini and Ollama formats, so Claude Code and Codex CLI connect
- Per-key rate counters and automatic fallover on 429/5xx across providers
- Keys AES-256-GCM encrypted in SQLite; apps only see one unified token
- Runs on Node 20+ at about 40 MB idle RSS, or via Docker
Weaknesses
- Free installs get new models 30 days after premium; same-day catalog costs $19/yr
- Single-user by design; no multi-user setup described
- Depends on free tiers that providers can change or retire without notice
- Catalog sync pulls a signed feed from freellmapi.co
- no GPU
- Docker + Compose
- Needs SQLite, Node 20+, provider API keys
- Models: OpenAI-compatible API, Anthropic Messages API, Gemini API, Ollama API
- port 3001
ContextForge MCP Gateway
ContextForge is IBM's Python registry and proxy that federates MCP servers, A2A agents and REST or gRPC APIs into one MCP-compliant endpoint with auth, rate limiting, retries, an Admin UI and OpenTelemetry tracing. It installs from PyPI (mcpgateway on port 4444), as a GHCR container, via Docker Compose with PostgreSQL, Redis and nginx, or with a Helm chart, and virtualizes legacy REST services as MCP tools.
Who it is for: enterprises centralizing MCP tools and agents behind one gateway
Strengths
- Federates MCP, A2A, REST and gRPC (via reflection) behind one MCP endpoint
- Transports: HTTP, JSON-RPC, WebSocket, SSE, Streamable HTTP, stdio
- Admin UI with live log viewer; OpenTelemetry to Phoenix, Jaeger, Zipkin
- Helm chart with HPA, Redis clustering and Grafana dashboards
Weaknesses
- arm64 containers unsupported in production; Apple Silicon needs Rosetta or PyPI
- Local Docker builds fail without the CI-only wheel closure; pull the GHCR image
- Will not start without generated JWT_SECRET_KEY and AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET
- Large surface: 55+ tables, 40+ plugins, nginx and pgAdmin in the Compose stack
- no GPU
- Docker + Compose
- Needs PostgreSQL (production; SQLite for dev), Redis (caching and federation)
- Models: A2A agents: OpenAI, Anthropic, custom
- port 4444