Comparison

LiteLLM vs Portkey

On the evidence we track, Portkey leads this comparison with a composite score of 79/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
LiteLLM58
★Portkey79
Score
vioscaleAI score
LiteLLM58 / 100low · 35%
Portkey79 / 100medium · 74%
Pricing
Free tier
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Model
LiteLLMfreemium
Portkeyfreemium
Price level
LiteLLMlow
Portkeymid
Starting price
LiteLLM–
Portkey$49
Transparent
LiteLLM✗
Portkey✓
Integrations
Count
LiteLLM140
Portkey1,600
Security
Certifications
Gdpr
LiteLLM–
Portkey✓
Hipaa
LiteLLM–
Portkey✓
Iso27001
LiteLLM–
Portkey✓
Soc2
LiteLLM–
Portkey✓
Reliability
Status page
LiteLLM–
Portkey✓
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
LiteLLM5 items
Portkey6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for llm gateways. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capabilities
Openai compatible API
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Automatic failover
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Routing strategy
LiteLLMCost based
PortkeyLoad based
Caching
LiteLLM-
PortkeySemantic
Virtual key management
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Budget spend controls
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Rate limiting
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Guardrails moderation
LiteLLMBuilt in
PortkeyVia integration
Request cost observability
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Streaming support
LiteLLM-
Portkey-
Deployment model
LiteLLMSelf hosted
PortkeyManaged SaaS
Open source
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Pricing model
LiteLLMOpen source self host
Portkeypay_per_10k_traces

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

LiteLLM

An open-source AI gateway that abstracts access to over 140 language model providers behind a single OpenAI-compatible API, enabling teams to implement spend tracking, request routing, and governance controls without changing application code.

Independently observed

Portkey

Leader

Platform providing API gateway functionality, observability with logging and traces, safety guardrails, access governance, and prompt version management for teams deploying AI applications at scale.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

LiteLLM

HybridFree tier30-day trial

Free open-source self-hosted tier; Enterprise priced to scale

  • Open SourceFree
    • 100+ LLM providers, one OpenAI API
    • Virtual keys, users & teams
    • Spend tracking
    • Budgets + rate limits
    • LLM fallbacks
    • +3 more
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Everything in Open Source, plus:
    • SSO + SCIM
    • OIDC / JWT auth
    • Audit logs
    • Secret managers + key rotation
    • +5 more
as of verify ↗

Portkey

Leader
from $49/moHybridFree tier

Free tier with 10k logs/month. Production at $49/month with usage overages. Enterprise custom pricing for compliance-focused organizations.

  • DeveloperFree
    • Universal API & Key Management
    • Routing, Fallbacks, Load Balancing, Retries
    • 3 Prompt Templates with Playground, Versioning, Variables
    • Logs, Traces, Feedback, Custom Metadata, Filters
    • Simple Caching
    • +3 more
  • Production$49/month + $9 per 100k request overage
    • Universal API, Fallbacks, Load Balancing, Retries
    • Unlimited Prompt Templates with Playground, API Deployment, Versioning, Variables
    • Logs, Traces, Feedback, Metadata, Filters, Alerts
    • LLM & Partner Guardrails
    • Role-Based Access Control, Service Account API Keys
    • +3 more
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Custom retention periods for logs and metrics
    • Advanced Evaluation Templates with custom guardrail hooks
    • Role-Based Access Control, SSO (Okta), Granular Budget & Rate Limits
    • Private Cloud Deployment, VPC Hosting, Data Export to Data Lakes
    • SOC2 Type 2, GDPR, HIPAA compliance certifications
    • +3 more
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
CLI
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Self-hosted
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
On-premise
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✓
Hybrid
LiteLLM✗
Portkey✓
Air-gapped
LiteLLM✓
Portkey✗

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (4)
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Azure
  • VertexAI

LiteLLM

36 total - 32 not shared
  • AWS Bedrock
  • Cloudflare
  • Google VertexAI
  • Meta Llama
  • Mistral AI
  • NLP Cloud
  • OVHCloud
  • vLLM
  • Nvidia NIM
  • Slack
  • Discord
  • Microsoft Teams
  • PagerDuty
  • Prometheus
  • AWS Secrets Manager
  • Google Cloud Secret Manager
  • MCP servers
  • Gemini
  • Bedrock
  • Langfuse
  • Langsmith
  • Datadog
  • Email
  • Webhook
  • +8 more
Independently observed

Portkey

Leader
16 total - 12 not shared
  • Google Cloud (Vertex AI, Gemini)
  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Langgraph
  • CrewAI
  • Strands Agents
  • Google ADK
  • Claude
  • Mistral
  • Google
  • MongoDB
  • Claude Code
Independently observed
Still deciding?

LiteLLM or Portkey: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.