Databricks AI Gateway Alternatives: When the Mosaic Layer Does Not Cover the Workload
Databricks AI Gateway, part of Mosaic AI Gateway, is the Databricks-native control surface for LLM traffic inside Databricks Model Serving. Teams whose AI workload spans Databricks endpoints and external SaaS LLMs (or who run inference outside Databricks entirely) pick a different layer. This piece walks through the credible Databricks AI Gateway alternatives across four use cases: open-source operational gateway, hosted multi-provider routing, application-side observability, and identity-bound enforcement for regulated workloads. Each option is evaluated against what Databricks AI Gateway covers and where the alternative fits better.