Crowkis vs LiteLLM-style gateways: caching is not a checkbox
Python gateways treat caching as one feature among forty. Crowkis treats it as the product, and ships it without a Python supply chain attached.
LLM gateways like LiteLLM do a real job: one API across providers, with caching available as a flag you can turn on. But a checkbox cache is an exact-match or naive-similarity cache, and it inherits the gateway's architecture, a large Python application with a sprawling dependency tree sitting in your hottest path.
The events of March 2026 made the architectural argument better than we ever could: a supply-chain compromise of a major Python LLM gateway exposed tens of millions of monthly downloads and triggered national cyber alerts. Every package in a dependency tree is attack surface. Crowkis ships as one signed Rust binary with zero runtime dependencies, the attack class doesn't apply, by construction.
- 1one stripped Rust binary
- 2/data volume
- 3non-root user
- 4no Python · no PyPI
- 5no package manager
- 6no dependency tree
One file to security-review. No supply chain to poison.
On the caching itself, the depth difference shows immediately. Gateways cache responses; Crowkis understands them. Intent classes, structural templates, confidence gating, reasoning reuse, anti-poisoning, per-tenant isolation, migration workflows, these aren't gateway features, they're a cache engine's entire reason to exist. You can even keep your gateway for routing and put Crowkis behind it as the memory layer.
The bottom line
Use a gateway for what gateways are good at: API normalization. Use a cache built by people who think about nothing else for the thing that actually cuts your bill. They compose beautifully, and only one of them needs to be trusted with reuse decisions.