OpenSearch vs Portkey (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Portkey is our pick, scoring 7.8/10 against 7.1/10 for OpenSearch on our AI Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 4/10). For 10 users, OpenSearch and Portkey are both free; both OpenSearch and Portkey have a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
OpenSearch
7.1/10
OpenSearch is an open-source, Apache 2.0 search and analytics suite with vector search, ML connectors and AI agent APIs, used to build semantic search, RAG and observability applications.
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 | 7.1/10 | 7.8/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 4/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Output Quality | 7/10 | Not listed |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | $49/mo Production |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Open source (self-managed) | Free Open Source |
| Features | ||
| AI Agents | Not listed | |
| API Access | Not listed | |
| Data Analysis | Not listed | |
| Enterprise Controls | Not listed | |
| Knowledge Base Search | Not listed | |
| Private Deployment | Not listed | |
| More features | ||
| 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 | |
OpenSearch vs Portkey cost by team size
OpenSearch and Portkey cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | OpenSearch | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeOpen source (self-managed) | FreeOpen Source |
| 5 users | FreeOpen source (self-managed) | FreeOpen Source |
| 10 users | FreeOpen source (self-managed) | FreeOpen Source |
| 25 users | FreeOpen source (self-managed) | FreeOpen Source |
| 50 users | FreeOpen source (self-managed) | 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 OpenSearch and Portkey suit
| Audience | OpenSearch | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Developers | 9/10It is an open-source engine with REST APIs and ML Commons connectors, aimed at engineers building search and RAG applications. | 9/10Setup takes a few lines of code with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, and there is a free tier and an open-source gateway. |
| Enterprise | 8/10Foundation governance, RBAC, audit logging, SAML and OIDC, and self-hosting all suit large organisations with platform teams. | 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. |
| IT Teams | 8/10It is widely used for log analytics and observability, covering traces, metrics and logs. | Not rated |
| SaaS Companies | Not rated | 8/10Built for teams running production GenAI features across multiple LLM providers. |
| Small Business | 3/10Running and tuning clusters takes engineering skill that most small businesses do not have. | Not rated |
| Startups | Not rated | 7/10A free tier and a $49 Production plan keep the entry cost low. |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose OpenSearch
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose Portkey
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Integration score (9/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
OpenSearch
Pros
- The Apache 2.0 licence and Linux Foundation governance remove vendor licence fees and lock-in.
- Security features such as RBAC, audit logging, SAML and OIDC are free, whereas Elastic puts some of these behind paid licences.
- AI features are moving quickly: agentic search went GA in 3.3, and agent memory, MCP support and LLM-as-judge relevance testing came in later 3.x releases.
- It runs on Kubernetes, Docker, bare metal or the managed Amazon OpenSearch Service, using the same codebase.
Cons
- Large or multi-tenant clusters often need manual tuning of caches, merges and thread pools.
- Dashboards is a Kibana 7.10 fork and is described as less polished than current Kibana.
- Plugin features such as k-NN and anomaly detection can vary in stability between versions.
- Some benchmarks and Elasticsearch users report performance and feature gaps against current Elasticsearch.
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 7.1/10 for OpenSearch. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 4/10 for OpenSearch and 8/10 for Portkey.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both OpenSearch and Portkey have a free plan.
