Portkey

What is Portkey?

Portkey is a control layer that sits between your application and its model providers. Its AI gateway offers a universal API with fallbacks, load balancing, retries and request timeouts, so a failing provider does not take the app down. Around the gateway are observability tools for logs, traces, feedback and alerts, virtual key management with budgets, simple and semantic caching, guardrails, and prompt management with templates, a playground and versioning. Enterprise customers add role-based access control, SSO, audit logs, private deployment and compliance options such as SOC2, GDPR and HIPAA. The site now says Portkey is becoming the Prisma AIRS AI Gateway for enterprises. Plans start with a free Developer tier covering 10k recorded logs a month, then a Production plan at $49 per month, with Enterprise on custom pricing. An open-source gateway is also available to self-host.

Use cases

• Route LLM calls through one gateway
• Add fallbacks and retries across providers
• Monitor LLM usage, cost and latency
• Cache repeated model requests
• Apply guardrails to model output
• Manage and version prompt templates
• Set budgets and rate limits per key
• Self-host an open-source AI gateway

Who it's for

• AI engineers
• Platform teams
• Enterprise security teams
• Startups

Why use Portkey

• One gateway replaces separate code for each provider's API and error handling.
• Fallbacks and load balancing keep apps responsive when a model provider has problems.
• Logs and traces show where requests, cost and errors come from across use cases.
• Caching and budgets help control spend as traffic grows.
• A free tier and an open-source gateway let you try it before paying.

Portkey features

• Universal API across model providers
• Automatic fallbacks, load balancing and retries
• Request timeouts and conditional routing
• Logs, traces, feedback, metadata and filters
• Alerts on the Production plan
• Virtual keys with budgeting and rate limits
• Simple and semantic caching
• Deterministic and partner guardrails
• Prompt templates with playground, API endpoints and versioning
• Role-based access control and service account API keys
• SSO, audit logs and SCIM on Enterprise
• VPC hosting and private cloud deployment on Enterprise

Portkey integrations

• AWS
• Azure
• Okta
• Microsoft SSO
• OpenAI
• GitHub

How to get started with Portkey

1. Sign up for the free Developer plan or deploy the open-source gateway yourself.
2. Add your provider keys as virtual keys and point your app at the Portkey API.
3. Create configs for fallbacks, load balancing, retries and caching.
4. Watch logs, traces and alerts in the dashboard, and add guardrails or prompt templates.
5. Move to Production or Enterprise when you need longer retention, more requests or governance.

Portkey limitations

• Developer plan is limited to 10k recorded logs a month and is not meant for production workloads
• Developer plan keeps logs for 3 days and metrics for 30 days
• Production plan overages cost $9 per additional 100k requests, up to 3M requests
• Compliance, VPC hosting and BAAs are Enterprise features

Portkey pricing

Yes, Portkey has a free plan. Paid plans start at $49 per month, according to the official pricing page on 24 Oct 2026.

Portkey plans

• Open Source

  Free

  • Host it yourself
  • Universal API
  • Routing and automatic fallbacks
  • Guardrails
  • Basic dashboard
  • Community support

• Developer

  Free forever

  • 10k recorded logs per month
  • 3 days log retention
  • AI Gateway
  • 3 prompt templates
  • Deterministic guardrails
  • Community support

• Production

  $49/month

  • 100k recorded logs per month
  • 30 days log retention
  • Alerts
  • LLM and partner guardrails
  • Unlimited prompt templates
  • Semantic caching
  • Role-based access control

• Enterprise

  Custom

  • 10 Mn plus recorded logs per month
  • Custom retention periods
  • SSO and granular budgets
  • Private cloud and VPC hosting
  • SOC2, GDPR and HIPAA
  • Dedicated onboarding

Plans as listed on the official pricing page on 24 Oct 2026. Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

Portkey alternatives

The main Portkey alternatives listed on Debuly are LiteLLM, OpenRouter, Helicone, Kong AI Gateway, Langfuse and Braintrust. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

1. 

   Braintrust

   AI observability and evaluation platform for tracing LLM apps and agents, scoring outputs and catching regressions before release.

   Developer platformsCoding
   FreemiumVisit Braintrust (official site)
2. 

   Helicone

   Open-source LLM observability and AI gateway that logs requests, tracks cost and latency, and routes to 100+ models through one API.

   Developer platformsCoding
   FreemiumVisit Helicone (official site)
3. 

   Kong AI Gateway

   Gateway and control layer for LLM, MCP and agent traffic, with usage metering, billing and cost limits built in.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agents
   Contact salesVisit Kong AI Gateway (official site)
4. 

   Langfuse

   Open-source LLM observability and evaluation platform for tracing agents, managing prompts and scoring outputs.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   FreemiumVisit Langfuse (official site)
5. 

   LiteLLM

   Open-source AI gateway and Python SDK that gives one OpenAI-format API to 100+ LLM providers, with keys, budgets and cost tracking.

   Developer platformsCodingAutomation and agents
   Open sourceVisit LiteLLM (official site)
6. 

   OpenRouter

   Unified OpenAI-compatible API for 500+ AI models with provider fallbacks, pay-as-you-go credits and a free tier

   Developer platformsChat assistantsAutomation and agents
   FreemiumVisit OpenRouter (official site)

Portkey FAQ

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

Image credits

• Logo: from framerusercontent.com · fetched 24 Oct 2026 · Vendor trademark, used only to identify the product; removed on request
• Cover: none collected yet, so a generated tile is shown.

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