packages/kilo-docs/pages/ai-providers/index.md
Kilo Code supports a wide variety of AI providers, giving you flexibility in how you power your AI-assisted development workflow. Choose from cloud providers, local models, or AI gateways based on your needs.
The fastest way to get started is with Kilo Code's built-in provider, which requires no configuration. Simply sign in and start coding.
For users who want to use their own API keys or need specific models, we support over 30 providers.
Major AI companies offering powerful models via API:
Run models on your own hardware for privacy and offline use:
Route requests through unified APIs with additional features:
| Priority | Recommended Provider |
|---|---|
| Ease of use | Kilo Code (built-in) |
| Best value | Zhipu AI or Mistral |
| Privacy/Offline | Ollama or LM Studio |
| Enterprise | AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex |
{% callout type="note" %}
In the VSCode (Legacy) version, API keys use VS Code's Secret Storage. In the current VSCode & CLI version, keys are set via environment variables or referenced in kilo.json config files. See individual provider pages for setup instructions for each platform.
{% /callout %}
You can prevent specific providers from loading using disabled_providers in your kilo.json (or kilo.jsonc). This is useful to hide models from built-in or detected providers that you don't intend to use.
{
"$schema": "https://app.kilo.ai/config.json",
"disabled_providers": ["kilo", "openai"]
}
To allow only specific providers and disable everything else, use enabled_providers instead:
{
"$schema": "https://app.kilo.ai/config.json",
"enabled_providers": ["anthropic"]
}
Both fields accept provider IDs — the lowercase identifier used in the provider/model format (e.g. kilo, anthropic, openai, google, groq).