Ferro Labs AI Gateway vs Portkey
Ferro Labs vs Portkey
Ferro Labs AI Gateway vs Portkey — Open Source vs Closed Core
TL;DR — Verdict
Both are solid AI gateways. Ferro Labs is the better choice if you need a fully open-source codebase, high-throughput Go performance, or 100% self-hosted deployment with no data leaving your infrastructure. Portkey is a strong option if you prefer a managed SaaS experience with a mature dashboard UI.
Strengths & Tradeoffs
Ferro Labs Strengths
- Fully open source (Apache 2.0) — no closed core; all routing and core gateway features in the OSS tier
- Written in Go: sub-millisecond overhead, handles 10K+ req/s on a single node
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) support for agentic workloads
- 100% self-hosted — your keys, your infra, zero data egress
- Core plugins in the OSS tier (caching, word filter, rate limiting, budget guard); advanced security plugins (PII redaction, prompt shield, secret scanning) in FerroCloud
Portkey Strengths
- Polished managed dashboard and prompt engineering UI
- Larger ecosystem of third-party integrations
- Dedicated enterprise support tiers
Detailed Breakdown
Feature-by-Feature Breakdown
Licensing & Ownership
Portkey Gateway is open source; dashboard and advanced features are closed
Portkey advanced features require the managed cloud
Performance
Provider & Model Support
Routing & Reliability
Plugins & Features
Pricing
See for yourself
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