Kong AI Gateway ranks #10 of 10 in our llm gateways testing. enterprise api governance applied to model traffic, priced opaquely.
64/100
the right answer if kong is already your api layer, and the hardest product here to price before you talk to sales.
why people look for an alternative
−no published base price for the entry paid tier
−the oss-versus-enterprise split on the ai plugins is undocumented
−provider and model coverage is not listed anywhere on the product page
stay with Kong AI Gateway if ai traffic governed by the same policy layer as the rest of your apis is the thing you care about most — nothing below beats it on that.
#2 in llm gateways · mit-licensed, and billed per log rather than per token
87/100
verdictthe only gateway here with a complete feature set under a genuinely permissive licence, priced in a unit that decouples your gateway bill from your token spend.
Portkey vs Kong AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway
Portkey
price
not published
$49/mo (production)
free tier
yes
yes
markup on tokens
none — pass-through
none disclosed
platform fee
not published
$49/mo (production)
self-host
yes — apache 2.0 core
yes — mit
models carried
not published
1,600+ claimed
switch forteams who want the full governance stack and the option to run it themselves
pros
+mit licence with no enterprise carve-out — genuinely self-hostable
+gateway bill is independent of token volume
+fallbacks, retries and timeouts on every tier including free
+virtual keys with budgets for per-team spend control
+guardrails documented rather than sold as an enterprise conversation
cons
−per-log billing is hard to forecast for high-request workloads
−free tier keeps logs for three days, which is too short to debug with
−publishes a broken '0+ llms' stat next to its 1,600+ claim
#6 in llm gateways · the widest provider coverage, with the governance behind a paywall
78/100
verdictthe broadest coverage of any self-hostable gateway, but the features most teams deploy it for sit under a proprietary licence with no published price.
LiteLLM vs Kong AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway
LiteLLM
price
not published
free to self-host — enterprise is quote-only
free tier
yes
yes
markup on tokens
none — pass-through
none — self-hosted
platform fee
not published
quote only
self-host
yes — apache 2.0 core
yes — mit core, proprietary enterprise/
models carried
not published
100+ providers
switch forteams who want one interface to every provider and can live without the enterprise tier
pros
+100+ providers behind one openai-format interface
+virtual keys and per-key spend caps on the free mit core
+no per-token cost when self-hosted — provider bills direct
+load balancing, retries and fallback routing built in
+licence is explicit about where the commercial line falls
cons
−sso, rbac, audit logs and multi-tenancy are all enterprise-licensed
−enterprise pricing is quote-only, sold per seat
−the open-core split means an unlicensed production rollout is easy to stumble into
#7 in llm gateways · 5% on model spend, stated plainly and applied consistently
75/100
verdictthe most transparent pricing in the category and the only one that charges for inference, which makes it costlier than the pass-through gateways on identical traffic.
Requesty vs Kong AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway
Requesty
price
not published
$0 free tier — pay-as-you-go is 5% on model cost
free tier
yes
yes
markup on tokens
none — pass-through
5% on model cost
platform fee
not published
none
self-host
yes — apache 2.0 core
no
models carried
not published
600+ / 300+ — conflicting
switch forteams who would rather pay one legible percentage than model a platform fee
pros
+one legible number — 5% on model spend, no seats or minimum
+eu data residency available on every plan
+fallbacks and spend limits included at the first paid tier
+routing and caching on the free tier
+openai-compatible endpoint with a documented base url
cons
−the only gateway here that marks up inference at all
−guardrails, pii detection and sso are enterprise-only at custom pricing
−publishes two different model counts on its own properties
#8 in llm gateways · apache 2.0 on paper, open-core in the build
72/100
verdictthe fastest thing here and the most permissively licensed on paper, but the features that make a gateway safe in production are not in the apache build.
Bifrost vs Kong AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway
Bifrost
price
not published
free (self-host) — enterprise is custom
free tier
yes
yes
markup on tokens
none — pass-through
none — self-hosted
platform fee
not published
none (oss)
self-host
yes — apache 2.0 core
yes — apache 2.0
models carried
not published
23+ providers
switch forlatency-sensitive proxying where the gateway must not be the bottleneck
pros
+unmodified apache 2.0 licence with no carve-out in the repository
+roughly 20µs added latency, the lowest published here
+drop-in replacement for the openai, anthropic and google sdks
+hierarchical budgets across virtual keys, teams and customers
+runs from a single go binary with zero-config startup
cons
−guardrails, clustering and the mcp gateway are enterprise-only despite the licence
−provider and model counts contradict between repo and product page
−enterprise pricing is quote-only with no published figure
every tool on this page went through the same test as Kong AI Gateway — same tasks, same order, scored the same way. the comparison tables are the figures from that testing, not vendor spec sheets.