Alternatives to Cloudflare AI Gateway
Cloudflare AI Gateway has 3 alternatives on this directory's rubric: Vercel AI Gateway, Portkey, Kong AI Gateway. Each entry below states one difference between it and Cloudflare AI Gateway, with the evidence and a source link. Cloudflare AI Gateway is operated by Cloudflare.
The 3 alternatives
Vercel AI Gateway
A model gateway that bills at provider list price with no token markup, supports BYOK without a fee, and charges for add-ons such as custom reporting and team-wide ZDR.
Difference on protocols fronted: Vercel AI Gateway reads "model APIs" (source, 4 November 2026); Cloudflare AI Gateway reads "model APIs; MCP goes through portals" (source, 4 November 2026). MCP servers are hosted with mcp-handler, not fronted by the gateway.
Vercel AI Gateway profile, Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Vercel AI Gateway
Portkey
An AI gateway with an MCP Gateway that checks the caller, injects upstream credentials, provisions tools per user and logs every tool call; now sold as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway.
Difference on protocols fronted: Portkey reads "model APIs and MCP" (source, 4 November 2026); Cloudflare AI Gateway reads "model APIs; MCP goes through portals" (source, 4 November 2026). MCP Gateway and Registry.
Portkey profile, Portkey vs Cloudflare AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway
Kong's AI Gateway 2.x adds an AI MCP Server entity that turns existing APIs into MCP tools, OAuth2 auth strategies for tool calls, semantic caching and OpenTelemetry for MCP and A2A traffic.
Difference on protocols fronted: Kong AI Gateway reads "model APIs, MCP, A2A" (source, 4 November 2026); Cloudflare AI Gateway reads "model APIs; MCP goes through portals" (source, 4 November 2026). OpenTelemetry covers all three.