Portkey Alternatives

Portkey starts at $49/mo. Here are the llm gateways tools worth weighing against it, and how they differ on billing and deployment.

  1. 1 LiteLLM logo
    LiteLLM Researched LLM Gateways

    Teams with engineering capacity that want provider-agnostic routing with no per-token markup, particularly at volumes where a percentage fee on a managed gateway becomes significant.

    From $0 self-hosted Self-hosts free
  2. 2 Cloudflare AI Gateway logo
    Cloudflare AI Gateway Researched LLM Gateways

    Teams already on Cloudflare who want caching, rate limiting and cost visibility at the edge with no markup, and who have separate tooling for evaluation.

    From $0 Bills records
  3. 3 Not Diamond logo
    Not Diamond Researched LLM Gateways

    Teams already running a gateway who want smarter per-request model selection without putting another vendor in the request path, particularly for coding agents where model spend is high and uncontrolled.

    From Conflicting reports
  4. 4 OpenRouter logo
    OpenRouter Researched LLM Gateways

    Small teams and prototypes trying many models without wanting infrastructure, and anyone whose monthly provider spend stays below roughly $5,000 where the markup costs less than running a gateway.

    From 5.5% markup Bills markup-pcts
  5. 5 TrueFoundry logo
    TrueFoundry Researched LLM Gateways

    Enterprises that need an AI gateway deployable on-premise or in their own cloud with governance features, and that want a managed product rather than operating open-source infrastructure.

    From $499/mo Bills requests
  6. 6 Vercel AI Gateway logo
    Vercel AI Gateway Researched LLM Gateways

    Teams already deploying on Vercel who want provider-agnostic model access at list price with no markup, and who do not need governance features that carry a per-request charge.

    From $0 plus provider list price
  7. 7 Kong AI Gateway logo
    Kong AI Gateway Researched LLM Gateways

    Organisations already standardised on Kong for API management, where bringing LLM traffic under existing governance matters more than LLM-specific features.

    From Around $500/mo (Konnect) Self-hosts free
  8. 8 Inspect AI logo
    Inspect AI Researched Eval Frameworks

    Teams doing serious, reproducible model evaluation - safety testing, capability benchmarking, agent evaluation, or anything where the result has to withstand scrutiny. Also the right choice for anyone publishing evaluation results.

    From $0 (open source) Self-hosts free
These tools meter differently, so their published prices are not comparable. Model them against your own workload →

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do people look for Portkey alternatives?

Usually pricing model or deployment. Portkey starts at $49/mo. Teams also switch when they need free self-hosting, which Portkey does offer.

What is the closest free alternative to Portkey?

LiteLLM is the strongest option that self-hosts free - Teams with engineering capacity that want provider-agnostic routing with no per-token markup, particularly at volumes where a percentage fee on a managed gateway becomes significant. Free on licence is not free to operate though; you still own the infrastructure and the on-call.

How should I compare the costs?

Not by their published prices, because tools in this category meter different things - spans, events, GB ingested, seats, prompts, or a percentage of provider spend. A $50 plan means something completely different in each case. Model your own request volume and span count through the cost calculator instead.