# Antseed vs Cloudflare AI Gateway

> Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) to Antseed's 55.1 (C) for model routing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing. Both do model routing.

- Antseed: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #667 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/antseed.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: grade B, 66.8/100, rank #275 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 136 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Antseed (C)

Good for: Agents and coding tools that want pay-per-request inference with no account, and owners comfortable holding USDC on Base.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 70 against 52

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: The buyer proxy copies a client's `Authorization` and `x-api-key` headers to the seller. The repository's March 2026 review flagged it and issue #1104 is open

### Cloudflare AI Gateway (B)

Good for: Teams that already hold a Cloudflare account and want one token, one bill, logs, budgets and fallbacks in front of several model providers, or that want to keep their own provider keys behind a proxy with spend limits.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 56
- Security & auth, 75 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 73 against 59

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: API tokens are account-scoped. Any token with AI Gateway Run can send requests through every gateway in the account and spend its stored provider keys


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Antseed | Cloudflare AI Gateway | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 62 | 66 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 75 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 73 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 75 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +30 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 70 | 52 | Antseed +18 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 75 | Antseed +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 73 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **55.1 · C** | **66.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Antseed | Cloudflare AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model router |
| Vendor | Antseed Foundation | Cloudflare, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field | Proprietary service under Cloudflare's Self-Serve Subscription Agreement and its service-specific terms. Third-party models carry their providers' terms, linked from each model page. `ai-gateway-provider` is MIT and Cloudflare's OpenAPI repository is BSD-3-Clause |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-15 | 2025-09-12 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 106 stars, 1.8k npm/wk | 251k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Antseed.** A buyer needs no account. The CLI creates a wallet key, free models answer at once and paid ones draw on deposited USDC, with seller, tokens and cost returned in response headers. Sellers are unvetted and can read prompts unless TEE-verified, the proxy forwards a client's own credential headers to them, and every package is pre-1.0.

**Cloudflare AI Gateway.** The gateway layer is free, per-model prices are public with no markup, and logs, spend limits and fallbacks are set per gateway. API tokens cannot be limited to one gateway, the service terms take third-party models outside Cloudflare's DPA, no SLA names the product, and error codes changed on 6 October 2026 with same-day notice.

## Before you call either

### Antseed

1. Send a placeholder key such as `antseed-p2p`. The proxy forwards whatever `Authorization` or `x-api-key` header the client sends to the seller
2. Call `GET /v1/models` first and request a concrete id. The `antseed` alias works only when the desktop app has a model selected
3. Handle 402 `insufficient_deposits` by reading `suggestedAmount`, then fund the address from `antseed buyer deposit` with USDC on Base
4. Pass `--verifiers antseed-verifier --require-verifier` to `antseed buyer start` when prompts are private, so only TEE-verified sellers are routed
5. Read `x-antseed-peer-id` and `x-antseed-estimated-cost-usd` on each response, and pin a seller with `<peerId>@<model>` when the same one must answer

### Cloudflare AI Gateway

1. Use the REST API at `api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/v1` with a token holding Workers AI Read. A token with only an AI Gateway permission returns 401 with code 10000
2. Send `cf-aig-gateway-id` on every Workers AI (`@cf/`) call and on dynamic routes. Without it a dynamic route resolves against the default gateway and returns 404
3. Set `cf-aig-collect-log: false` or `cf-aig-collect-log-payload: false` on sensitive requests. Logging of prompts and responses is on by default
4. Treat a 429 as a rate limit or a spent budget and a 401 with code 2009 as a rejected provider key. Do not retry a 2009
5. Set `byok_only` on the gateway or send `cf-aig-no-wholesale: true` to stop a request without a provider key falling through to paid Unified Billing credits

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Antseed or Cloudflare AI Gateway?

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against Antseed's 55.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antseed leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Antseed and Cloudflare AI Gateway need an API key?

Antseed needs no key. Cloudflare AI Gateway needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Antseed and Cloudflare AI Gateway without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Antseed. Cloudflare AI Gateway has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai.

### Are Antseed and Cloudflare AI Gateway open source?

Antseed is open source (GPL-3.0 (LICENSE in the repository). The @antseed/cli manifest on npm carries no licence field). No open-source release is listed for Cloudflare AI Gateway.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antseed-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "antseed", "b": "cloudflare-ai-gateway"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare antseed cloudflare-ai-gateway`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/antseed.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway.json

## Other comparisons with Antseed or Cloudflare AI Gateway

- [Claude API vs Antseed](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-antseed.md)
- [Claude API vs Cloudflare AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-cloudflare-ai-gateway.md)
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- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Cloudflare Workers AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-cloudflare-workers-ai.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Cohere Chat API (Command models)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-cohere-chat.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs DeepInfra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-deepinfra.md)
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- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs GroqCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-groq.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Mistral AI API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-mistral-api.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Novita AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-novita-ai.md)
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- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Prism Inference](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-prism-inference.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SambaCloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-sambanova.md)
- [Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SiliconFlow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.md)
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