# Portkey vs Cloudflare AI Gateway: which do AI models recommend for LLM gateways, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, LLM gateways and observability. Seven of fourteen models named Portkey first on the direct prompt; zero named Cloudflare AI Gateway. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/it-data/llm-gateways-and-observability/portkey-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portkey | 31% | #2 of 8 | 11% | 53 | 14 of 14 |
| Cloudflare AI Gateway | 2% | #6 of 8 | 3% | 29 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Claude Haiku 4.5: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: Bifrost, LiteLLM, Nexos.ai, OpenRouter)
- Perplexity Sonar: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: Bifrost, LiteLLM)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: Helicone, LiteLLM, OpenRouter)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: Amazon Bedrock, Azure AI, LiteLLM)
- Kimi K2: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: Cloudflare AI Gateway, Kong AI Gateway, LiteLLM)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: portkey first (first choices: OpenRouter, Portkey) (alternatives: Kong AI Gateway, LiteLLM)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: portkey first (first choices: Portkey) (alternatives: LiteLLM, OpenRouter)
- GPT-5.4 mini: neither first, one named (first choices: LiteLLM) (alternatives: Portkey)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: LiteLLM) (alternatives: Bifrost, Cloudflare AI Gateway, Portkey)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: neither first, one named (first choices: Portkey AI Gateway) (alternatives: Bifrost, Cloudflare AI Gateway, LiteLLM)
- Mistral Small: neither first, one named (first choices: Nexos.ai) (alternatives: Cloudflare AI Gateway)
- MiniMax M2.5: neither first, one named (first choices: Helicone, Portkey.ai) (alternatives: Cloudflare AI Gateway, Kong AI Gateway)
- GPT-6 Luna: neither first, one named (first choices: Portkey, now branded PRISMA AIRS AI Gateway) (alternatives: Cloudflare AI Gateway, LiteLLM)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named

## What the models said about Portkey

- "avoid Portkey hosted due to CVEs and black-box concerns" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt, hard negative)
- "its paid plans start at $49/month, so it is usually less attractive than LiteLLM or OpenRouter for the tightest budgets" (Perplexity Sonar, budget prompt, soft negative)
- "Acquired by Palo Alto Networks in May 2026, which introduces some roadmap uncertainty" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Go with Portkey if you want an all-in-one platform that's enterprise-ready with strong compliance certifications." (MiniMax M2.5, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "If you prefer a managed service so your team can focus strictly on building product features, choose Portkey." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "Great all-rounder. Excellent balance between enterprise governance, prompt management, and observability." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Cloudflare AI Gateway

- "Insanely fast, great for basic caching and logging, but lacks deep enterprise budgeting/RBAC controls." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, soft negative)
- "The safest bets are Cloudflare AI Gateway for hosted, or Kong self-hosted for enterprise compliance." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt, first choice)
- "For most budget-conscious companies, I'd start with Cloudflare AI Gateway" (GPT-6 Luna, budget prompt, first choice)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.