Comparison

OpenRouter vs Portkey

No clear leader: OpenRouter (79.8) and Portkey (78.9) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
OpenRouter80
Portkey79
Score
Vioscale score
OpenRouter80 / 100low · 36%updating
Portkey79 / 100high · 76%updating
Pricing
Free tier
OpenRouter
Portkey
Model
OpenRouterfreemium
Portkeyfreemium
Price level
OpenRouterlow
Portkeymid
Starting price
OpenRouter
Portkey$49
Transparent
OpenRouter
Portkey
Integrations
Count
OpenRouter80
Portkey1,600
Security
Gdpr
OpenRouter
Portkey
Hipaa
OpenRouter
Portkey
Iso27001
OpenRouter
Portkey
Soc2
OpenRouter
Portkey
Reliability
Status page
OpenRouter
Portkey
Market
Availability

Capabilities

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

Capabilities
Openai compatible API
OpenRouter
Portkey
Automatic failover
OpenRouter
Portkey
Routing strategy
OpenRouterCost based
PortkeyLoad based
Caching
OpenRouterExact
PortkeySemantic
Virtual key management
OpenRouter
Portkey
Budget spend controls
OpenRouter
Portkey
Rate limiting
OpenRouter
Portkey
Guardrails moderation
OpenRouter-
PortkeyVia integration
Request cost observability
OpenRouter
Portkey
Streaming support
OpenRouter
Portkey-
Deployment model
OpenRouterManaged SaaS
PortkeyManaged SaaS
Open source
OpenRouter
Portkey
Pricing model
OpenRouterUsage based saas
Portkeypay_per_10k_traces

What each one is

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

OpenRouter

OpenRouter aggregates 500+ language models from 80+ providers through a single, OpenAI-compatible API interface. It offers automatic fallback routing, cost control, usage analytics, and data policy management for teams deploying AI applications at scale.

Independently observed

Portkey

A unified platform combining an AI gateway, observability dashboards, prompt versioning, governance controls, and guardrails. Enables teams to route requests across LLM providers, monitor costs and performance, securely manage API keys, and deploy production-ready prompts with version control.

Independently observed

Pricing

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

OpenRouter

HybridFree tier

Free tier available. Pay-as-you-go at 5.5% platform fee. Enterprise from $25k/month.

  • FreeFree
    • 25+ free models
    • 4 free providers
    • Chat and API access
    • Community support
  • Pay-as-you-go5.5% platform fee on model usage, fee discounts available
    • 500+ models from 80+ providers
    • Automatic fallback routing
    • Activity logs and export
    • Auto-routing and preferred vendor selection
    • Budgets and spend controls
    • +4 more
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • 500+ models, 80+ providers
    • Custom data policies and model/provider routing policies
    • Managed policy enforcement
    • SSO/SAML authentication
    • Contractual SLAs
    • +5 more
as of verify ↗

Portkey

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
OpenRouter
Portkey
CLI
OpenRouter
Portkey
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
OpenRouter
Portkey
Self-hosted
OpenRouter
Portkey
Hybrid
OpenRouter
Portkey

Integrations

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

In common (4)
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Google
  • Mistral

OpenRouter

11 total - 7 not shared
  • Vercel AI SDK
  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • OpenAI SDK
  • Meta
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP)
  • Terraform
Independently observed

Portkey

15 total - 11 not shared
  • Google Cloud (Vertex AI, Gemini)
  • Azure
  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Langgraph
  • CrewAI
  • Strands Agents
  • Google ADK
  • Claude
  • MongoDB
  • Vertex AI
Independently observed

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