CARTO vs Portkey (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Portkey is our pick, scoring 7.8/10 against 7.3/10 for CARTO on our AI Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Cost score (7/10 vs 4/10). Only Portkey has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
CARTO
7.3/10
CARTO is a cloud-native location intelligence platform that runs spatial analysis, mapping and geospatial apps directly in cloud data warehouses for enterprise data 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 | 7.3/10 | 7.8/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Analytics | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 4/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | $49/mo Production |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | Free Open Source |
| Features | ||
| GIS and Mapping | Not listed | |
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
CARTO vs Portkey cost by team size
| Team size | CARTO | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 5 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 10 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 25 users | Contact for pricing | FreeOpen Source |
| 50 users | Contact for pricing | 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 CARTO and Portkey suit
| Audience | CARTO | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Developers | 8/10Offers APIs, deck.gl support, coding agents and an MCP server for building geospatial apps. | 9/10Setup takes a few lines of code with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, and there is a free tier and an open-source gateway. |
| Enterprise | 9/10Committed tiers, self-hosting, SSO, audit logs and Elite support are aimed at large organizations. | 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. |
| SaaS Companies | Not rated | 8/10Built for teams running production GenAI features across multiple LLM providers. |
| Small Business | 3/10There are no published prices, the minimum contract is 12 months, and reviewers say the cost may be high for smaller teams. | Not rated |
| Startups | Not rated | 7/10A free tier and a $49 Production plan keep the entry cost low. |
| Utilities | 6/10Suited to spatial analysis of network data held in a warehouse, but it has no asset maintenance or field tooling. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose CARTO
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose Portkey
- Has a free plan (CARTO does not)
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
CARTO
Pros
- Runs analysis directly inside BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift and Oracle without copying data, which reviewers say saves time and storage.
- Builder renders very large datasets, and reviewers rate it highly for mapping and visualization.
- The Data Observatory gives access to more than 12,000 datasets for enrichment.
- Can be bought through the Google Cloud, AWS, Azure and Snowflake marketplaces, and self-hosting is available on committed tiers.
- SoftwareReviews users report strong loyalty, with 98 percent planning to renew.
Cons
- Advanced analysis still requires SQL, so non-technical users face a learning curve.
- No public prices, and even Pay As You Go needs a 12-month contract.
- Warehouse query costs can be hard to predict at high usage.
- Reviewers give lower marks for mobile and web GIS, and there is no field or maintenance tooling.
- The trial lasts 30 days, cannot be extended and cannot be used in production.
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 7.3/10 for CARTO. The largest gap is in Cost: 4/10 for CARTO and 7/10 for Portkey.
Portkey has a free plan; CARTO does not list one.
