byok-relay is an open-source relay server designed to let users connect their own AI API keys—such as those from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini—to third-party applications. It addresses the challenge faced by developers whose products do not natively support user-supplied API keys, often resulting in lost users who already possess access to AI services through employer accounts, startup credits, or personal subscriptions. The tool eliminates the need for developers to build and maintain backend infrastructure solely to proxy API requests or manage CORS restrictions, making it especially suited for those seeking rapid product validation without operational overhead.
The relay acts as an intermediary between the application's frontend and AI providers. Users register their API keys, which are encrypted using AES-256-GCM and stored server-side; the keys are never returned or exposed after registration. Instead, the application receives a relay token, which is used for subsequent requests. byok-relay injects the stored API key into each request and proxies it to the appropriate provider, ensuring that API keys are not exposed in frontend code and that browser CORS issues are resolved. Providers then bill users directly for their own usage, so the application incurs no inference costs. Supported providers include OpenAI (chat, completions, embeddings), Anthropic (messages API), Google Gemini (generateContent API), Groq (OpenAI-compatible), Mistral (chat completions), OpenRouter (over 200 models), and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including self-hosted and vLLM instances.
Security is a core feature, with all stored keys encrypted, strict CORS enforcement to declared origins, HTTPS required in production, zero request logging, and rate limiting set at 100 requests per minute globally and 20 AI requests per minute per relay token. byok-relay is available as both a self-hosted solution and a managed hosted service. io, or any VPS, with the option to connect to PostgreSQL for persistent storage. 0 and is free to self-host, while the managed relay operates on a usage-based pricing model.
This tool is positioned for developers building browser-based AI applications who want to support user-supplied API keys securely and efficiently, without incurring additional infrastructure or inference costs.
byok-relay sits in PulseGate's Other AI category. Allowing users to securely use their own AI provider API keys in third-party apps without exposing credentials or incurring inference costs. It is built as an open-source project for developers building AI-powered apps. byok-relay is open source under the Apache-2.0 license. The product ships for the web, the command line, and API, and it can be self-hosted.
Behind byok-relay is avikalpg, and the product first shipped in 2026. Development happens publicly on GitHub with 51 stars and 52 commits in the last 90 days. Key capabilities include API key relay, multi-provider support, and open source. It exposes integrations via a public API.
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