Pick LiteLLM if
platform teams who already pay model vendors and want keys, budgets, and fallbacks in one proxy.
Read the LiteLLM pageLiteLLM vs Portkey
Our take
Pick LiteLLM if platform teams who already pay model vendors and want keys, budgets, and fallbacks in one proxy. Pick Portkey if platform teams who will put a gateway in front of several providers and pay when logs exceed 10k. Skip LiteLLM if people who want a local chat app (Ollama) or traces-first observability (Langfuse). Skip Portkey if solo builders who only need a request table and a $0 Hobby card (Helicone).
Best for
LiteLLM One proxy in front of many model APIs
Portkey Route and observe production LLM calls
Free plan
LiteLLM $0 · , “free forever” on the page. You still pay upstream model APIs
Portkey $0 · for the gateway. Universal API, retries, routing, basic dashboard. Community support
Lowest paid
LiteLLM Not published by the vendor
Portkey Production $49/mo
Coding agent
LiteLLM Playground / Models / Agents / MCP / Guardrails
Portkey
Runs where
LiteLLM Local; you host it
Portkey Local or hosted
Watch out
LiteLLM $0 is the proxy, not the tokens
Portkey Developer drops logs after 10k
Last checked
LiteLLM 2026-10-19 · litellm.ai/pricing
Portkey 2026-10-22 · portkey.ai/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Portkey if
platform teams who will put a gateway in front of several providers and pay when logs exceed 10k.
Read the Portkey page