# Kong AI Gateway vs OpenRouter

**Leader by Vioscale score:** OpenRouter

| Attribute | Kong AI Gateway | OpenRouter |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 55.8 (36% (low)) | 79.8 (36% (low)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | Kong AI Gateway is a control platform that routes and governs all AI-related traffic—including language model requests, agent-to-agent communication, and model context protocol interactions—with unified security, monitoring, and compliance enforcement across an organization's AI infrastructure. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"caching":"semantic","open_source":true,"rate_limiting":true,"automatic_failover":true,"budget_spend_controls":true,"openai_compatible_api":true,"virtual_key_management":true,"request_cost_observability":true,"mit_or_apache_permissive_oss_license":true,"pii_redaction_and_data_masking_in_flight":true,"custom_rate_limiting_by_user_or_tenant_id":true,"auto_fallback_routing_on_rate_limit_or_downtime":true,"organization_wide_cost_tracking_and_chargebacks":true,"semantic_caching_for_repeat_queries_and_cost_savings":true}` | `{"caching":"exact","open_source":true,"pricing_model":"usage-based-saas","rate_limiting":true,"deployment_model":"managed-SaaS","routing_strategy":"cost-based","streaming_support":true,"architecture_model":"managed_cloud_saas","automatic_failover":true,"budget_spend_controls":true,"openai_compatible_api":true,"virtual_key_management":true,"request_cost_observability":true,"bring_your_own_keys_byok_routing":true,"streaming_token_support_server_sent_events":true,"universal_api_key_for_100_plus_llm_providers":true,"zero_data_retention_and_prompt_logging_opt_out":true,"auto_fallback_routing_on_rate_limit_or_downtime":true,"organization_wide_cost_tracking_and_chargebacks":true,"semantic_caching_for_repeat_queries_and_cost_savings":false}` |
| integrations.count | 16 | 80 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"AWS Bedrock"},{"name":"GCP Gemini"},{"name":"Azure AI"},{"name":"Databricks"},{"name":"Mistral"},{"name":"Huggingface"},{"name":"Llama"},{"name":"AWS Bedrock Guardrails"},{"name":"Azure Content Safety"},{"name":"Google Cloud Model Armor"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Git"},{"name":"CertManager"},{"name":"Google Cloud Gemini"},{"name":"Hugging Face"},{"name":"Docusign"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"AWS Kinesis"},{"name":"Google Pub/Sub"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"}]` | `[{"name":"Vercel AI SDK"},{"name":"Claude Code"},{"name":"Cursor"},{"name":"OpenAI SDK"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Google"},{"name":"Meta"},{"name":"Mistral"},{"name":"Model Context Protocol (MCP)"},{"name":"Terraform"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://konghq.com/products/kong-ai-gateway","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T13:45:38.191Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free tier, 50 requests/day, no card required","features":["25+ free models","4 free providers","Chat and API access","Community support"],"description":"Evaluation tier with limited access to test the platform","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"models":"25+ free models","providers":"4 free providers","rate_limit":"50 requests/day"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pay-as-you-go","summary":"5.5% platform fee on model usage, fee discounts available","features":["500+ models from 80+ providers","Automatic fallback routing","Activity logs and export","Auto-routing and preferred vendor selection","Budgets and spend controls","Prompt caching","Management API key","Email support","No minimum spend"],"components":[{"of":"usage","kind":"percentage","rate":5.5}],"description":"Usage-based pricing scaled by model and tokens consumed","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"models":"500+ models","providers":"80+ providers"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"$25k/month list price inference with no fees, then 5% on overage","features":["500+ models, 80+ providers","Custom data policies and model/provider routing policies","Managed policy enforcement","SSO/SAML authentication","Contractual SLAs","Support SLA with shared Slack channel","High global rate limits","Optional dedicated limits","Invoicing options","Volume commitment pricing"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":25000,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"of":"usage","kind":"percentage","rate":5}],"description":"Volume-based commitment with dedicated support and custom policies","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"free_inference_value":"$25,000 list price/month"}}],"summary":"Free tier available. Pay-as-you-go at 5.5% platform fee. Enterprise from $25k/month.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://openrouter.ai/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T13:44:21.104Z","billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |

## Capabilities (Llm Gateways)

| Capability | Kong AI Gateway | OpenRouter |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Openai compatible API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic failover | ✓ | ✓ |
| Routing strategy | - | Cost based |
| Caching | Semantic | Exact |
| Virtual key management | ✓ | ✓ |
| Budget spend controls | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rate limiting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Guardrails moderation | - | - |
| Request cost observability | ✓ | ✓ |
| Streaming support | - | ✓ |
| Deployment model | - | Managed SaaS |
| Open source | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing model | - | Usage based saas |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:01:08.680Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*