---
title: "Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway | Agent MCP Directory"
description: "Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway: one sourced difference and a verdict for product engineers, platform leads and agent builders."
canonical: https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/portkey-vs-kong-ai-gateway
site: "Agent MCP Directory"
last_updated: 2026-11-05
section: "Head-to-heads"
---

# Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway | Agent MCP Directory

> Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway: one sourced difference and a verdict for product engineers, platform leads and agent builders.

Source: https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/portkey-vs-kong-ai-gateway
Site: Agent MCP Directory
Last reviewed: 2026-11-05

# Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway

Product engineer: Kong suits teams that already run Kong for APIs. Developer-platform lead: Portkey publishes prices (49 USD a month Production); Kong's overview page does not. Agent builder: Portkey's per-user tool provisioning maps well to agents acting for many users.

## The sourced difference

Portkey's MCP Gateway provisions tools per user and logs each call with parameters; Kong turns existing APIs into MCP tools and applies OAuth2 strategies, with OpenTelemetry across AI, MCP and A2A. (Portkey: [Portkey MCP Gateway docs](https://portkey.ai/docs/product/mcp-gateway), read 5 November 2026; Kong AI Gateway: [Kong AI Gateway docs](https://developer.konghq.com/ai-gateway/), read 5 November 2026)

## Verdicts by reader

| Reader | Verdict |
| --- | --- |
| Product engineer | Kong suits teams that already run Kong for APIs. |
| Developer-platform lead | Portkey publishes prices (49 USD a month Production); Kong's overview page does not. |
| Agent builder | Portkey's per-user tool provisioning maps well to agents acting for many users. |

## Side by side on the rubric

| Dimension | Portkey | Kong AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Protocols fronted | model APIs and MCP | model APIs, MCP, A2A |
| Auth passthrough | credential injection | OAuth2 auth strategies |
| Caching | simple cache, 1-day TTL on Developer | semantic cache |
| Pricing | free / 49 USD / custom | not published on the docs page |
| Observability | per tool call logs | OpenTelemetry, Konnect dashboards, audit logs |

Evidence for every cell is on the profiles: [Portkey](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/hosts/portkey/) and [Kong AI Gateway](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/hosts/kong-ai-gateway/).

Edition

4 November 2026

Method

[How rows are verified](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/method/)

Data

[CSV and JSON](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/data/)

Markdown

[This page as markdown](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/portkey-vs-kong-ai-gateway/index.md)

## Sources

-   [Portkey MCP Gateway docs](https://portkey.ai/docs/product/mcp-gateway), read 5 November 2026
-   [Kong AI Gateway docs](https://developer.konghq.com/ai-gateway/), read 5 November 2026
-   [Portkey: portkey.ai/pricing](https://portkey.ai/pricing), read 4 November 2026

Last reviewed 5 November 2026