Alternatives to Portkey
Portkey has 3 alternatives on this directory's rubric: Cloudflare AI Gateway, Vercel AI Gateway, Kong AI Gateway. Each entry below states one difference between it and Portkey, with the evidence and a source link. Portkey is operated by Portkey, now offered as Palo Alto Networks Prisma AIRS AI Gateway.
The 3 alternatives
Cloudflare AI Gateway
A proxy in front of model providers with free caching, rate limiting and analytics, optional Unified Billing, and from 3 Nov 2026 required authentication on new gateways.
Difference on protocols fronted: Cloudflare AI Gateway reads "model APIs; MCP goes through portals" (source, 4 November 2026); Portkey reads "model APIs and MCP" (source, 4 November 2026). MCP traffic is fronted by MCP server portals, a separate product.
Cloudflare AI Gateway profile, Portkey vs Cloudflare AI Gateway
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); Portkey reads "model APIs and MCP" (source, 4 November 2026). MCP servers are hosted with mcp-handler, not fronted by the 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); Portkey reads "model APIs and MCP" (source, 4 November 2026). OpenTelemetry covers all three.