# Kong AI Gateway alternatives: what AI models name instead, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. 200 of the 252 answers in the 1 category where Kong AI Gateway holds a standing named it neither first nor as an alternative; these are the first choices those answers made. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/kong-ai-gateway/alternatives/

## Named instead, most often (every category and segment added)

- LiteLLM: 50
- Portkey: 42
- OpenRouter: 30
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: 8
- Bifrost: 7
- Helicone: 7

## LLM gateways and observability

**Small business**: 78 of 84 answers did not name Kong AI Gateway (Kong AI Gateway is #7 of 7 at 0%).

- OpenRouter: first choice in 23 of those 78
- LiteLLM: first choice in 22 of those 78
- Portkey: first choice in 19 of those 78
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: first choice in 7 of those 78
- Helicone: first choice in 4 of those 78
- Vercel AI Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 78
- FreeLLMAPI: first choice in 1 of those 78
- LangSmith: first choice in 1 of those 78

**Mid-market**: 70 of 84 answers did not name Kong AI Gateway (Kong AI Gateway is #7 of 8 at 0%).

- LiteLLM: first choice in 20 of those 70
- Portkey: first choice in 15 of those 70
- OpenRouter: first choice in 7 of those 70
- Helicone: first choice in 3 of those 70
- Bifrost: first choice in 2 of those 70
- Portkey AI Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 70
- Apache APISIX: first choice in 1 of those 70
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: first choice in 1 of those 70

**Enterprise**: 52 of 84 answers did not name Kong AI Gateway (Kong AI Gateway is #4 of 8 at 6%).

- LiteLLM: first choice in 8 of those 52
- Portkey: first choice in 8 of those 52
- Bifrost: first choice in 5 of those 52
- Arize AX: first choice in 2 of those 52
- LangSmith: first choice in 2 of those 52
- Azure API Management AI Gateway: first choice in 1 of those 52
- Azure OpenAI Service: first choice in 1 of those 52
- Confident AI: first choice in 1 of those 52

Published under CC BY 4.0. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.