Comparison

Everstack vs Portkey

Portkey is a strong gateway with a more polished operator experience than ours, and since May 2026 it has had Palo Alto Networks behind it. The two questions that decide this are whether self-hosting is a default or a plan tier, and whether you need anything past the request.

EverstackEverstack
vs
PortkeyPortkey
View pricingRead documentation

What is Portkey?

Portkey is an AI gateway providing multi-provider routing, guardrails, semantic caching and observability over LLM traffic, with a mature operator experience. It is primarily cloud-hosted, with self-hosting positioned on enterprise plans. Palo Alto Networks has completed its acquisition of Portkey and now sells the product as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway.

Why teams choose Everstack

  • An independent roadmap that is not set by a security platform's priorities
  • Self-hosting as the default rather than a plan tier
  • Agent runtime, sandboxes and evaluations on the same control plane

Portkey: Strengths & Limitations

Strengths

  • A genuinely strong gateway. Multi-provider routing, guardrails, semantic caching and a mature observability surface over model traffic, all working well on day one.
  • Excellent gateway UX and policy controls. Portkey has spent longer than we have polishing the operator experience for routing.
  • Now backed by Palo Alto Networks, which is a stronger continuity and compliance story than an independent young company can offer.
  • A clear managed-product posture, which suits teams that want to adopt quickly without operating infrastructure.
  • Established enterprise relationships and procurement paperwork already in place at many large organisations.

Limitations

  • Palo Alto Networks has completed its acquisition of Portkey, and the product is now sold as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway. Acquisitions of infrastructure vendors routinely bring repricing, enterprise repackaging and roadmap reprioritisation.
  • Portkey is primarily cloud-hosted, with self-hosting positioned on enterprise plans rather than as the default path.
  • Scope stops at the gateway. Agent sessions, isolated code execution, memory and human review are systems you assemble around it.
  • Roadmap direction now answers to a security platform's priorities, which may or may not align with yours.

Everstack advantage

Independent roadmapSelf-hosting without a plan conversationRuntime and execution in the same planeOne Apache-2.0 licence

The facts, side by side

Licence, deployment model and list price, taken from each vendor's own documentation. Every source is linked at the bottom of this page.

FactEverstackPortkey
OwnershipEverstack Labs, independent.Palo Alto Networks. The acquisition has completed and the product is now sold as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway. Palo Alto Networks announced general availability on 16 July 2026, describing it as six weeks after closing. Neither company publishes an exact closing date.
Deployment postureSelf-hosted first. Run the Apache-2.0 build with Docker or Kubernetes at any tier, or use Everstack Cloud.Primarily cloud-hosted, with self-hosting positioned on enterprise plans.
Gateway capabilityMulti-provider routing, fallback, semantic caching, per-tenant limits and guardrails.The same shape of capability, and more mature on operator UX. This is Portkey's home ground.
Agent runtimeStateful sessions, tools, approvals, child agents and workflows.Out of scope for the gateway product.
Isolated code executionDocker, Firecracker microVM and Kubernetes sandboxes.Out of scope.
Evaluations and human reviewDatasets, scorers, LLM judges and annotation queues.Out of scope.
Roadmap riskA young independent company. That is its own risk and we are not pretending otherwise.Backed by a large security vendor, which is more stable but also means roadmap priorities are set elsewhere.

Acquisition date and deployment posture from public announcements and Portkey's own materials, reviewed 31 August 2026. Portkey's pricing and packaging may have changed since the acquisition closed; verify current terms directly.

Feature comparison

Direct capability comparison across key dimensions

FeatureEverstackPortkey
Gateway
OpenAI-compatible endpoint
Multi-provider routing and fallback
Semantic caching
Request-time guardrails
Operator UX maturity
Observability
LLM traffic observability
OpenTelemetry-native tracesPartial
Deployment
Self-hosting as the default path
Runtime
Stateful agent sessions
Isolated code execution
Vector memory
Workflows with approvals
Quality
Datasets and evaluation runs
Human annotation queues
Operations
Large-vendor continuity and compliance backing

The same job, in both products

Working code rather than adjectives. Each snippet follows the quickstart published by the product it belongs to.

Route a chat completion

Both are OpenAI-compatible, so this is a base URL change and a header. Integration effort should not decide this comparison.

Everstack

call.py
from openai import OpenAIimport osclient = OpenAI(    base_url="https://{instance}.{region}.everstack.ai/openai/v1",    api_key=os.environ["EVERSTACK_API_KEY"],)response = client.chat.completions.create(    model="gpt-4o-mini",    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise this report"}],)

Portkey

call.py
from openai import OpenAIimport osclient = OpenAI(    base_url="https://api.portkey.ai/v1",    api_key=os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"],    default_headers={        "x-portkey-api-key": os.environ["PORTKEY_API_KEY"],        "x-portkey-provider": "openai",    },)response = client.chat.completions.create(    model="gpt-4o-mini",    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise this report"}],)

Key evaluation questions

What to ask when comparing Portkey to Everstack

QuestionEverstackPortkey
Who owns the roadmap?Everstack Labs, independent.Palo Alto Networks, which now sells the product as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway.
Is self-hosting the default or a plan tier?The default, at any tier.Positioned on enterprise plans.
Which gateway is more polished today?Ours is younger.Portkey, on operator UX and policy controls.
Does it execute agent code in isolation?Yes, with Docker, Firecracker and Kubernetes backends.No, that is outside the gateway's scope.

Feature-by-feature analysis

Where each product is genuinely stronger, row by row

What the acquisition changes

Close call
Everstack

An independent roadmap, with the risk that comes with a young independent company.

Portkey

Palo Alto Networks has completed the acquisition and now sells the product as Prisma AIRS AI Gateway. Stronger continuity and compliance backing, and roadmap priorities now set inside a security platform.

How to choose

This cuts both ways honestly. If you want vendor stability, the acquisition helps. If you want an AI infrastructure roadmap driven by AI infrastructure users, it is a reason to look around.

Deployment control

Everstack wins
Everstack

Self-hosting is the default at any tier, Apache-2.0, Docker or Kubernetes.

Portkey

Primarily cloud-hosted, with self-hosting positioned on enterprise plans.

Why Everstack

If a deployment constraint is why you are shopping, the difference between a default and a plan tier is the whole comparison.

Gateway maturity

Portkey wins
Everstack

Capable, but younger.

Portkey

More mature operator UX and policy controls. This is Portkey's home ground and they are good at it.

Why Portkey

If you are evaluating purely on how good the gateway feels to run, Portkey is ahead and we would rather say so than pretend the tables are even.

Scope past the request

Everstack wins
Everstack

Agent sessions, isolated sandboxes, memory, workflows and evaluations on the same control plane, sharing a trace.

Portkey

The gateway. Everything past the request is a separate system you choose and operate.

Why Everstack

Decides whether a trace stops at the request boundary or follows the work into execution and scoring.

Moving from Portkey to Everstack

Both are OpenAI-compatible gateways, so applications move with a base URL and header change. The work is re-expressing configs and virtual keys, and deciding whether you also want the runtime layers Portkey does not cover.

  1. 1

    Swap the endpoint and drop the Portkey headers

    Everstack authenticates with its own API key rather than a Portkey key alongside a provider key and provider header.

  2. 2

    Re-express configs as routing policy

    Portkey config objects covering routing strategy, fallback ordering, retries and cache settings map to Everstack provider routes and routing policy.

  3. 3

    Recreate virtual keys and guardrails

    Virtual keys map to Everstack API keys with per-tenant limits. Guardrail rules need re-declaring; the concepts map but the definitions are not wire compatible.

  4. 4

    Dual-run before cutting over

    Mirror traffic and compare latency, cache hit rate, cost totals and guardrail outcomes for a release before turning Portkey off.

What breaks

  • Portkey-specific headers, including x-portkey-api-key, x-portkey-config and x-portkey-provider, need replacing.
  • Portkey config JSON objects have no direct equivalent and are re-expressed as routing policy.
  • Anything calling the Portkey API directly has to be rewritten.

What does not carry over

  • Historical request logs and analytics held by Portkey.
  • Virtual key objects and their usage state.
  • Saved dashboards and alert configurations.

Read this part first

When to choose Portkey instead

Portkey is a strong gateway and the Palo Alto backing is a real advantage for some buyers. Pick Portkey over Everstack when any of these is true.

  • Routing is the whole problem and you want the most polished managed gateway available. Portkey's operator UX is more mature than ours.
  • Large-vendor continuity matters to your procurement. Palo Alto Networks behind the product is a stronger answer to vendor-risk questions than an independent young company.
  • You already have a Palo Alto relationship, in which case consolidating vendors is worth more than anything on this page.
  • You want a managed product with no infrastructure to operate, and cloud hosting is acceptable for your data.
  • You need enterprise compliance paperwork that already exists, rather than a self-hosted deployment you certify yourself.
  • You do not need agent execution, sandboxes or evaluations. Buying a platform for a routing problem is over-buying.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about choosing between Everstack and Portkey

Ready to get started?

See how Everstack compares to Portkey for your specific use case.

View pricingRead docs

Sources & References

Portkey documentationPortkey homepagePalo Alto Networks: Prisma AIRS AI Gateway GAPortkey pricingEverstack licence (Apache-2.0)

Last reviewed: August 31, 2026. This comparison is for informational purposes and reflects our understanding of competitor capabilities based on publicly available documentation.

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