AetherGate vs Leading AI Gateways in 2026
AI gateway pricing is no longer comparable from token price alone. The real engineering differences lie in provider-direct BYOK vs managed credits, request/log meters, model breadth, self-hosting, failover behavior, data retention, governance, and whether orchestration is part of the gateway or something you must build separately.
2026 Master AI Gateway Comparison Matrix
All competitor pricing facts cite official vendor pricing pages verified from official vendor sources and refreshed through October 2026.
| Platform | Category | Entry / Base Pricing | BYOK Fee Policy | Self-Hostable | Deep Dive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AetherGate (This App) | Unified BYOK Gateway & Control Plane | $9/mo Relay · provider inference billed directly | 0% at all volumes (AES-256-GCM vault) | Managed AetherGate service | Open App → |
LLM Gateway Verified September 2026 | Open-Source & Managed LLM Gateway | $0 Free forever (5% fee on hosted credit purchases) | 0% platform fee on BYOK; $0.01/1M tokens for full payload retention | Yes (AGPLv3 core; Enterprise license for SSO/Guardrails) | Compare vs LLM Gateway |
OpenRouter Verified October 4, 2026 | Hosted model marketplace | Standard PAYG: 5.5% platform fee; Business: 8%; Enterprise custom | PAYG: $25,000/month list-price inference allowance, then 5%; Enterprise custom | Managed gateway service | Compare vs OpenRouter |
Portkey AI Gateway Verified October 4, 2026 | Observability and governance platform | Free prototype tier; Production $49/month; Enterprise custom | Plan/log charges plus upstream inference | Self-managed options documented | Compare vs Portkey AI Gateway |
LiteLLM Verified October 4, 2026 | Self-hosted SDK and gateway | Open-source deployment plus infrastructure; Enterprise quote | Provider inference plus hosting and any Enterprise license | Self-managed options documented | Compare vs LiteLLM |
Helicone Verified August 2026 | LLM Observability Proxy | Hobby Free (10k req/mo, 7-day retention); Pro $79/mo; Team $799/mo | 0% token markup; paid plans charge base subscription + log/storage usage | Yes (Docker / Open Source) | Compare vs Helicone |
Cloudflare AI Gateway Verified October 4, 2026 | Managed edge gateway | Core analytics, caching and rate limiting free; ancillary charges vary | Provider BYOK charges; Unified Billing credit purchases add 5% | Managed gateway service | Compare vs Cloudflare AI Gateway |
AWS Bedrock Verified October 2026 | Hyperscaler Managed AI Platform | Pay-per-token through AWS + optional AWS add-ons | AWS account billing rather than provider-direct BYOK | No — managed AWS cloud service | Compare vs AWS Bedrock |
Requesty Verified October 4, 2026 | Managed routing platform | Free-model tier: 200 requests/day; PAYG 5% markup | BYOK available; confirm exact BYOK charging with vendor | Managed gateway service | Compare vs Requesty |
Vercel AI Gateway Verified October 4, 2026 | Managed AI SDK gateway | PAYG provider list rates; eligible free tier $5/month | No gateway BYOK markup; system fallback consumes gateway credits | Managed gateway service | Compare vs Vercel AI Gateway |
Bifrost by Maxim AI Verified October 4, 2026 | Self-hosted Go gateway | Apache-2.0 OSS free; Enterprise custom | Provider inference plus self-managed infrastructure/license | Self-managed options documented | Compare vs Bifrost by Maxim AI |
Orq.ai Verified October 2026 | AI Gateway, Governance & Agent Platform | PAYG; Orq-managed keys add 4.5% platform fee | 1M BYOK requests/month free, then 4% | Enterprise offers SaaS, VPC and on-prem | Compare vs Orq.ai |
TrueFoundry AI Gateway Verified October 2026 | Enterprise AI Gateway | Developer $0; Pro $499/mo; Pro Plus $2,999/mo; Enterprise custom | Gateway platform priced by tier and request volume | Enterprise VPC/on-prem/air-gapped options | Compare vs TrueFoundry AI Gateway |
Kong AI Gateway Verified October 4, 2026 | API and AI governance platform | AI Management Plus from $25/month plus usage; Enterprise custom | Topology, model proxy, transactions and paid plugins affect total cost | Self-managed options documented | Compare vs Kong AI Gateway |
Head-to-Head 2026 Gateway Reviews
AetherGate vs LLM Gateway
LLM Gateway (llmgateway.io) is a prominent open-source and hosted AI gateway that routes across 250+ models and 40+ providers with zero platform fee on Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) usage and a 5% fee on hosted cre...
AetherGate vs OpenRouter
OpenRouter is a hosted model marketplace. Managed marketplace with pooled inference credits and provider routing. BYOK can use existing provider accounts, with configurable shared-capacity fallback. AetherGate ...
AetherGate vs Portkey AI Gateway
Portkey AI Gateway is a observability and governance platform. Hosted observability and prompt workflows alongside an open-source gateway. The current website also uses PRISMA AIRS AI Gateway branding. AetherGa...
AetherGate vs LiteLLM
LiteLLM is a self-hosted sdk and gateway. SDK/library or self-hosted proxy: client virtual keys identify consumers while configured credentials authenticate upstream. AetherGate focuses on provider-direct BYOK ...
AetherGate vs Helicone
Helicone pioneered one-line URL proxy observability for OpenAI and Anthropic, later adding gateway caching and fallback controls. According to official pricing verified in August 2026, Helicone offers a Free Ho...
AetherGate vs Cloudflare AI Gateway
Cloudflare AI Gateway is a managed edge gateway. Managed edge gateway with provider-specific and unified billing paths, distinct from Workers compute and Workers AI inference. AetherGate focuses on provider-dir...
AetherGate vs AWS Bedrock
Amazon Bedrock is AWS's managed foundation-model platform with deep IAM, PrivateLink, governance and enterprise procurement integration. As of October 2026, Bedrock supports current OpenAI GPT-5.6 models alongs...
AetherGate vs Requesty
Requesty is a managed routing platform. Hosted routing, caching, fallback and observability with EU-oriented residency options. AetherGate focuses on provider-direct BYOK text routing, configurable fallback cha...
AetherGate vs Vercel AI Gateway
Vercel AI Gateway is a managed ai sdk gateway. Managed gateway distinct from the AI SDK application library. Team-scoped BYOK may fall back to system credentials. AetherGate focuses on provider-direct BYOK text...
AetherGate vs Bifrost by Maxim AI
Bifrost by Maxim AI is a self-hosted go gateway. HTTP gateway or embedded Go SDK with OSS routing, virtual keys, budgets, caching, telemetry and MCP capabilities. AetherGate focuses on provider-direct BYOK text...
AetherGate vs Orq.ai
Orq.ai combines a 500+ model gateway with smart routing, observability, PII controls, MCP gateway, agent runtime and governance. Its October 2026 pricing lists 1 million BYOK requests per month free and then a ...
AetherGate vs TrueFoundry AI Gateway
TrueFoundry AI Gateway targets production teams that need a very broad model catalog, observability, governance and enterprise deployment controls. Its October 2026 pricing lists a free Developer tier for 50,00...
AetherGate vs Kong AI Gateway
Kong AI Gateway is a api and ai governance platform. AI proxy plugins on Kong’s broader API gateway foundation, with serverless, dedicated cloud, hybrid and self-hosted choices. AetherGate focuses on provider-d...