Portkey vs Flagsmith
Enterprise AI gateway + observability + guardrails + prompt mgmt
vs. Open-source feature flags + remote config — SaaS, private cloud, self-host
Pricing tiers
Portkey
Developer (Free)
Free forever. 10k logs/month. Universal API + key management. 3 prompt templates. Basic observability.
Free
Gateway (OSS)
MIT-licensed gateway only (no observability UI). Self-host for routing/fallbacks.
$0 base (usage-based)
Production
$49/month. 100k logs ($9 per additional 100k). Fallbacks, load balancing, retries, semantic caching. Unlimited prompts. RBAC.
$49/mo
Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ logs/month. Custom guardrails, advanced evals, SSO, budget controls, VPC + on-prem, SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR.
Custom
Flagsmith
Free
$0. 50,000 API requests/mo. 1 team member. Unlimited flags. Community support.
Free
Self-hosted
$0 (OSS). Host yourself via Docker/K8s. Fair-source license (non-compete).
$0 base (usage-based)
Start-up
$40/mo. 1,000,000 API requests/mo. 3 team members. Standard support.
$40/mo
Scale-up
$200/mo. 5,000,000 API requests. 10 team members. Priority support + SLA.
$200/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Unlimited API requests, SSO, SAML, RBAC, audit logs, on-prem.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Portkey vs free on Flagsmith.
| Metric | Portkey | Flagsmith |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Portkey · 18 features
- AI Gateway — Unified OpenAI-compatible API to 250+ LLMs.
- Alerts — Thresholds on latency, error rate, cost, usage.
- Budget Controls — Per-key + per-team spending limits.
- Evaluations — Built-in evaluator templates + custom.
- Fallbacks — Config-driven provider fallback chains.
- Guardrails — Pre/post processors for safety + compliance.
- Load Balancing — Round-robin, weighted, least-latency across providers.
- MCP Support — Use MCP servers as tools through gateway.
- Observability — Logs, traces, feedback, alerts, cost tracking.
- OSS Gateway — Open-source gateway (portkey-ai/gateway).
- Prompt Library — Shared prompt library + public marketplace.
- Prompt Templates — Version + test + collaborate on prompts.
- Retries — Configurable retry policies per route.
- Role-Based Access Control — Team permissions on prompts + keys.
- Semantic Caching — Vector-based cache on query meaning.
- Simple Caching — Exact-match cache.
- Virtual Keys — Per-app keys with budget + rate limits + permissions.
- VPC Deployment (Ent) — Deploy in your own VPC for compliance.
Flagsmith · 14 features
- A/B Testing — Multivariate flag splits.
- Audit Log — Full history of flag changes.
- Change Requests — Approval workflow for flag changes.
- Edge API — Global low-latency flag eval.
- Feature Flags — Boolean + multivariate + JSON flags.
- Local Evaluation — Server SDKs eval flags locally — no per-req API call.
- Percentage Rollouts — Gradual traffic ramp.
- Remote Config — Non-boolean config values.
- Role-Based Access — Fine-grained permissions.
- Scheduled Flags — Time-based flag changes.
- Segments — Rule-based targeting.
- Self-Hosting — Docker/Helm install.
- SSO + SAML — Enterprise SSO.
- Webhooks — Outbound event streaming.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Portkey | Flagsmith |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Portkey CLI | Flagsmith CLI |
| SDK | portkey-ai (Node), portkey-ai (Python) | flagsmith-android, flagsmith-go, flagsmith-ios, flagsmith-java, flagsmith-js (browser), flagsmith-nodejs, flagsmith-python, flagsmith-ruby |
| REST | Portkey API (OpenAI-compat) | Flagsmith REST API |
| MCP | Portkey MCP | — |
| OTHER | Portkey Dashboard | Flagsmith Dashboard, Flagsmith Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Portkey and Flagsmith are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
Want this comparison in your AI agent's context? Install the free Staxly MCP server.