Portkey vs Postman
Enterprise AI gateway + observability + guardrails + prompt mgmt
vs. The world's most popular API platform — 30M+ developers
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
Postman
Free
$0. 3 users. 1,000 collection runs/mo. Unlimited collections. 1,000 calls/mo to mock servers. 14-day history.
Free
Basic
$19/user/mo. 10,000 collection runs, 50 integrations, 60-day history, integrations.
$19/mo
Professional
$39/user/mo. 250,000 runs, API mocking, monitoring, version tags, governance lite.
$39/mo
Enterprise
$99/user/mo (Ultimate). Unlimited runs, SSO/SAML, RBAC, IP allowlist, private cloud, audit.
$99/mo
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Portkey vs free on Postman.
| Metric | Portkey | Postman |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
Postman · 17 features
- API Documentation — Public + private docs from collections.
- API Versioning — Manage multiple API versions.
- Collection Runner — Run N iterations with data.
- Collections — Saved request groups + runners.
- Desktop App — Native Mac/Win/Linux.
- Environments — Per-env variables.
- Flows (low-code) — Visual workflow builder.
- Governance — API design rules enforcement.
- Mock Servers — Auto-generated mocks.
- Monitors — Scheduled collection runs + alerts.
- Newman CLI — CI/CD collection runner.
- Postman AI — Generate tests + docs with AI.
- Pre-request / Test Scripts — JS scripts + assertions.
- Public API Network — Discoverable APIs marketplace.
- Request Builder — GUI for any HTTP request.
- Request History — Per-user request log.
- VS Code Extension — Requests inside VS Code.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Portkey | Postman |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Portkey CLI | newman (CLI) |
| SDK | portkey-ai (Node), portkey-ai (Python) | — |
| REST | Portkey API (OpenAI-compat) | Postman API |
| MCP | Portkey MCP | — |
| OTHER | Portkey Dashboard | Postman Desktop, Postman VS Code Extension, Postman Web, Public API Network |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Portkey and Postman may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. 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.