Bifrost vs Portkey (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Portkey is our pick, scoring 7.8/10 against 7.2/10 for Bifrost on our AI Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Analytics score (9/10 vs 6/10). For 10 users, Bifrost and Portkey are both free; both Bifrost and Portkey have a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Bifrost
7.2/10
Open-source AI gateway from Maxim AI that routes LLM and MCP traffic across many providers, with fallbacks, budgets, caching and observability, for engineering teams.
Portkey
7.8/10
Portkey is an AI gateway and LLMOps control plane that routes, monitors, and governs requests to 1,600+ LLMs for engineering teams and enterprises.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.2/10 | 7.8/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 9/10 |
| Analytics | 6/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | $49/mo Production |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free OSS | Free Open Source |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
Bifrost vs Portkey cost by team size
Bifrost and Portkey cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Bifrost | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeOSS | FreeOpen Source |
| 5 users | FreeOSS | FreeOpen Source |
| 10 users | FreeOSS | FreeOpen Source |
| 25 users | FreeOSS | FreeOpen Source |
| 50 users | FreeOSS | FreeOpen Source |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Bifrost and Portkey suit
| Audience | Bifrost | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 7/10Enterprise adds SSO, RBAC, audit logs and air-gapped deployment, at custom pricing. | 8/10The Enterprise plan adds SSO, RBAC, VPC deployment, and HIPAA/SOC 2 support, and the product is now part of Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS. |
| Developers | 9/10It installs with one npx or Docker command and works as a drop-in replacement for existing SDKs. | 9/10Setup takes a few lines of code with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, and there is a free tier and an open-source gateway. |
| SaaS Companies | 8/10Virtual keys and hierarchical budgets let teams control LLM spend per team or customer. | 8/10Built for teams running production GenAI features across multiple LLM providers. |
| Startups | 7/10The free Apache 2.0 edition covers routing, fallbacks and caching, but the team has to run it. | 7/10A free tier and a $49 Production plan keep the entry cost low. |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Bifrost
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Cost score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Portkey
- Higher Analytics score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Security score (8/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
Bifrost
Pros
- The OSS edition is free under Apache 2.0 and includes fallbacks, semantic caching, budgets and an MCP gateway.
- Vendor benchmarks show very low gateway overhead, about 11 microseconds at 5,000 RPS.
- Existing OpenAI, Anthropic and Google GenAI SDK code can switch to it by changing the base URL.
- It can run on-prem or air-gapped, so prompt data stays in your own environment.
- The GitHub project is active, with about 9.5k stars.
Cons
- SSO, RBAC, audit logs and guardrails are only in the Enterprise tier.
- Enterprise pricing is not published, so buyers need to talk to sales before they know the cost.
- Self-hosting leaves uptime, upgrades and key rotation to your team.
- It uses SQLite unless configured otherwise, and production needs Postgres or MySQL.
- Evaluations live in Maxim's separate platform, which has its own per-seat price.
Portkey
Pros
- Unified API covering more than 1,600 models, with automatic fallbacks, retries, and load balancing.
- Detailed logs and traces show the latency, cost, and retry path of each request.
- An open-source core and a free tier let developers try it before paying.
- Enterprise governance features include budgets, rate limits, RBAC, SSO, and audit logs, with VPC deployment available.
Cons
- Since the 2026 acquisition, paid plans route through Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS, which brings uncertainty about future pricing and roadmap.
- You pay for the gateway on top of LLM provider costs, and provider billing stays separate.
- Below Enterprise, support is community-only, and the free plan keeps logs for just 3 days.
- It may be more platform than needed for small prototypes that want only a simple proxy.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Portkey scores higher on our AI Software criteria: 7.8/10 against 7.2/10 for Bifrost. The largest gap is in Analytics: 6/10 for Bifrost and 9/10 for Portkey.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both Bifrost and Portkey have a free plan.
