Portkey vs Respan
A side-by-side comparison of Portkey and Respan, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Portkey | Respan |
|---|---|---|
| Category (differs) | Inference | Observability |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License (differs) | Open core | Proprietary |
| Deployment (differs) | Hybrid | Cloud |
| Platforms | API, Web | API, Web |
| Model support (differs) | Multi-model | Model-agnostic |
| Vendor (differs) | Portkey | Keywords AI, Inc. |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Portkey
Open-source AI gateway to 1,600+ LLMs with built-in observability, guardrails, and governance — self-host, hybrid, or managed cloud.
- One API across many providers
- Routing, caching, and fallbacks
- Cost limits and PII redaction
- Guardrails, RBAC, and MCP gateway
- Acquired by Palo Alto Networks (closed 2025)
- Future roadmap may shift to Prisma AIRS
- Advanced governance gated to paid tiers
Respan
Bundles an AI gateway, observability, and an automated eval agent in one loop — detect, decide, and fix in production without stitching tools.
- Trace trees, dashboards, and alerts
- 500+ models via one endpoint
- Rule checks, AI judges, human review
- Spend caps and fallback routing
- Generous free tier (100k logs)
- Proprietary, no self-host option
- Recent rebrand can confuse search
- Team tier jumps to $199/mo
When to pick which
They share capabilities, but each leads with different ones as a headline job:
Portkey is built around LLM observability.
- LLM observability (primary capability)
Respan is built around Multi-model access.
- Multi-model access (primary capability)
They also differ on:
- License
- Open core · Proprietary
- Deployment
- Hybrid · Cloud
Their capability lists differ in recorded depth — compare the full lists above before deciding.