ROUTEDESK

LLM gateways, observability and what they really cost, with the source and author of every number

Who wrote this?

We sell no gateway, proxy or model, and we are paid by nobody to rank. Several of the best-known comparisons are written by gateway vendors, so each number here is tagged with who wrote it.

The three tags

Rules

All sources used (29)

SourceTagDate readUsed forConflict of interest
OpenRouter pricing page (5.5% and 8%; BYOK $25,000 free then 5%)OFFICIAL2026-11-10OpenRouterVendor describing its own product.
Flatkey, "AI Gateway Pricing (October 2026)" (Flatkey sells a gateway)VENDOR-WRITTEN2026-10-22OpenRouter, Vercel AI Gateway, Cloudflare AI Gateway, Portkey, Helicone, LiteLLM, FlatkeyFlatkey sells a gateway and appears in its own tables.
Continuum, "Best LLM gateways 2026: 9 compared and scored" (Continuum builds a gateway)VENDOR-WRITTEN2026-08OpenRouter, Portkey, Helicone, LiteLLM, Kong AI Gateway (Konnect), Bifrost (Maxim), ContinuumContinuum builds a coding-agent workbench with a hosted gateway, and is in its own comparison.
Vercel AI Gateway pricing docsOFFICIAL2026-11-10Vercel AI GatewayVendor describing its own product.
Cloudflare AI Gateway pricing referenceOFFICIAL2026-11-10Cloudflare AI GatewayVendor describing its own product.
Portkey pricing pageOFFICIAL2026-11-10PortkeyVendor describing its own product.
Helicone pricing page (Hobby free, Team $799, usage-based; Pro price not in the readable text)OFFICIAL2026-11-10HeliconeVendor describing its own product.
Prefactor, "Agent Observability and Evaluation Platforms Compared (2026)" (Prefactor sells an observability product)VENDOR-WRITTEN2026-10Helicone, Langfuse, LangSmith, Arize AX / Phoenix, Datadog LLM Observability, Pydantic Logfire, Opik (Comet), Galileo, Fiddler, W&B Weave, Maxim AI, PrefactorPrefactor sells an observability product and appears in its own table.
LiteLLM GitHub repository (63,013 stars, 2026-11-10)OFFICIAL2026-11-10LiteLLMVendor describing its own product.
LiteLLM home page ("MIT-licensed and free to self-host; Enterprise adds SSO, RBAC, audit logs, SCIM, support")OFFICIAL2026-11-10LiteLLMVendor describing its own product.
Kong pricing page ("Plus from $25/month plus usage"; 1M requests included, $200 per additional 1M)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Kong AI Gateway (Konnect)Vendor describing its own product.
Bifrost GitHub repository (9,469 stars, Apache 2.0, 2026-11-10)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Bifrost (Maxim)Vendor describing its own product.
Maxim / Bifrost pricing page (OSS free, Enterprise custom pricing, 14-day trial)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Bifrost (Maxim), Maxim AIVendor describing its own product.
Flatkey pricing page (top-ups $10 to $300)OFFICIAL2026-11-10FlatkeyVendor describing its own product.
TrueFoundry pricing pageOFFICIAL2026-11-10TrueFoundry AI GatewayVendor describing its own product.
Arcade.dev, "Best AI gateways" (Arcade sells an agent-tools product)VENDOR-WRITTEN2026-10TrueFoundry AI GatewayArcade sells an agent-tools product.
Continuum home page ("free, vendor-neutral app")OFFICIAL2026-11-10ContinuumVendor describing its own product.
Langfuse pricing pageOFFICIAL2026-11-10LangfuseVendor describing its own product.
LangChain pricing page (LangSmith)OFFICIAL2026-11-10LangSmithVendor describing its own product.
Arize pricing pageOFFICIAL2026-11-10Arize AX / PhoenixVendor describing its own product.
Datadog pricing page (Pro "Starting At $160 per month", annual pricing shown; $3.50 per 10K extra)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Datadog LLM ObservabilityVendor describing its own product.
Pydantic pricing pageOFFICIAL2026-11-10Pydantic LogfireVendor describing its own product.
Comet pricing page (Opik)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Opik (Comet)Vendor describing its own product.
Braintrust pricing page (Free $0, Pro $249; GB and score rates)OFFICIAL2026-11-10BraintrustVendor describing its own product.
Galileo pricing page (2026-09-06 copy; Enterprise only, no plan prices in readable text)OFFICIAL2026-11-10GalileoVendor describing its own product.
Confident AI pricing page (Free $0, Starter $200, Team $2,000; $1 per GB-month over)OFFICIAL2026-11-10Confident AIVendor describing its own product.
Fiddler pricing page ($0.002 per trace)OFFICIAL2026-11-10FiddlerVendor describing its own product.
Weights & Biases pricing page (now CoreWeave Forge; Weave ingestion Free 1 GB, Pro 1.5 GB, +$0.10/MB)OFFICIAL2026-11-10W&B WeaveVendor describing its own product.
Prefactor pricing page (Dev free 5,000 spans; Startup $49, 15,000 spans, $0.0025/span; Scaleup $199, 100,000 spans, $2.50/1k)OFFICIAL2026-11-10PrefactorVendor describing its own product.