Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Eden AI

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 67.8 (B) on agent readiness against Eden AI's 59.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Eden AI leads on schema & documentation. Both do llm inference.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 830 models comparisons

Which one, for what

Cloudflare AI Gateway B

Best 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

  • Reliability, 66 against 33
  • Payments & pricing, 52 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 58
  • Transparency & trust, 74 against 55

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

Eden AI C

Best for Teams that want one key and bill for many LLMs plus OCR, speech, translation and web tools, with EU-only processing.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 75

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Cloudflare AI Gateway loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No public status page, incident history or SLA found

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reliability Cloudflare AI Gateway +33

Cloudflare AI Gateway 66

Hosted reading. www.cloudflarestatus.com is a Statuspage with AI Gateway, Workers AI and API as separate components (20). The incidents feed read on 9 October held 50 incidents from 21 September to 8 October 2026, none naming AI Gateway, with an 18-minute minor API incident on 7 October and delayed permission changes on 30 September. On 1 November the host's history.atom held only scheduled maintenance for 2 to 6 November, and the history page loads by script. Whether the incidents posted from 16 to 31 October name AI Gateway wasn't read for this listing (cloudflare-r2, cloudflare-workers-ai and cloudflare-email-service read that list for their own components only), and 3 August to 20 September and 9 to 15 October went unread too. An unread window isn't credited, so the line rests on the 21 September to 8 October reading alone, as on 9 October (10 of 30). Unified Billing traffic is limited to 200 requests per 60 seconds per gateway, re-read on 1 November, the Cloudflare API to 1,200 requests per five minutes per token, and BYOK traffic has no gateway limit (15). Over-limit and over-budget requests return 429, the Cloudflare API returns retry-after and Ratelimit headers for its own limit, and retries with backoff and model fallbacks can be set per request or per gateway. No Retry-After was found for the gateway's own 429, and nothing separates a rate-limit 429 from a spend-limit 429 (11 of 15). No SLA naming AI Gateway was found. The Enterprise SLA lists service-specific SLAs for R2, Queues and Workers only (0). The core product carries no beta label, and Machine Payments is in beta (10). 20 + 10 + 15 + 11 + 0 + 10 = 66.

Eden AI 33

Router, read on the hosted lines. No status page is linked from the site or docs, and status.edenai.co didn't resolve for us on 6 November 2026 (0). No incident history to read (5). The rate-limits page gives 10 requests a second per account, shared across keys, while the plans page gives 7 a second, raisable to 15, so the figure is documented but inconsistent (10). Fallback retries the next model or provider on a 429 or error inside one request, but no client-facing 429 or Retry-After guidance was found (8). No SLA published; 'Dedicated support & SLA' is listed only for the custom Advanced plan, and the pricing page's '99.99%' uptime is a claim without a status page behind it (0). The v3 API is GA (10). 0+5+10+8+0+10 = 33.

Payments & pricing Cloudflare AI Gateway +22

Cloudflare AI Gateway 52

x402 is in beta on POST /ai/run since 30 September 2026 for four open models of 241 in the catalogue. It still needs a Cloudflare API token, a United States account and a card on file, and the OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes are not covered. We did not call it (12 of 40). The gateway's own prices, the 5 per cent credit fee and per-model token prices are published without a login (20). Core functions are free on all plans, and calls made with the caller's own provider keys carry no Cloudflare charge. We did not sign up to confirm that no card is asked for (20). A person creates the account and the first token in a browser, and the x402 route needs both (0). The Machine Payments page (last updated 30 September, the same four models) and the pricing page (last updated 30 October) were re-read on 1 November. 12 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 52.

Eden AI 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Provider prices with no markup plus a 5.5% platform fee, published per model in the keyless catalogue (20). llms.txt says some models are billed $0 for tests, but whether a new account can call them without buying credits isn't stated (10). A person signs up in a browser and buys credits through Stripe (0). 0+20+10+0 = 30.

Transparency & trust Cloudflare AI Gateway +19

Cloudflare AI Gateway 74

Closed service under the Self-Serve Subscription Agreement and service-specific terms with a section for Workers AI and AI Gateway. Each model page links the provider's terms, ai-gateway-provider is MIT and the OpenAPI repository is BSD-3-Clause (16 of 30). The service terms, the logging and Zero Data Retention pages, the DPA (version 6.4, 3 April 2026) and the privacy policy of 4 November 2025 were read. The privacy policy gives retention criteria, not periods. The terms take third-party models outside the DPA, while the sub-processor list names five model providers for AI Gateway, and the two are hard to square (17 of 30). No deprecation policy was found. Deprecated endpoints carry notices with no dates, and section 8 of the agreement lets Cloudflare modify or discontinue a service without notice (6 of 20). The sub-processor list, last updated 1 October 2025, names Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and Groq for AI Gateway with locations. The catalogue on 9 October 2026 also carries models from Alibaba, ByteDance, MiniMax and others that the list does not name (12 of 20). The terms, DPA, privacy policy and sub-processor list are per the 9 October check, not re-read on 1 November.

Eden AI 55

Editorial half only. Closed service under terms last updated 22 October 2026, naming Eden AI SAS and French law with courts in Lyon (15). The data retention page, terms and DPA agree that content isn't stored by default, and the docs carry a per-provider table of training, retention and ZDR (27). No deprecation policy found; models are dropped in docs updates without dated notice that we found (5). The DPA's Annex 2 names operational subprocessors (AWS EMEA, ClickHouse, Sentry, Metabase, Stripe, Brevo and others) with their roles, and the EU endpoint keeps routing in the EU (18). 15+27+5+18 = 65.

Maintenance & community Cloudflare AI Gateway +17

Cloudflare AI Gateway 75

Router, read on the model lines. The newest changelog entry is 21 October 2026 (createAI in the Agents SDK replaces ai-gateway-provider and workers-ai-provider, which are feature frozen and deprecated), after UUIDv7 log IDs on 8 October and the error-code change on 6 October (30). No minimum notice for API changes was found. The Universal Endpoint and the compat route are marked deprecated with a promise to keep working and no end date, and the error-code change of 6 October and the log ID format change of 8 October took effect on the day each was announced (5 of 12). No gateway endpoint was shut down in the last 90 days that we found. Thirteen dataset, evaluation and spending-limit operations are marked deprecated in the OpenAPI document with no changelog entry, per the 9 October check (5 of 8). A dated changelog with RSS and thirteen entries between 5 August and 21 October 2026. The Discord community was not sampled (11 of 15). Replies on the SDK repositories were not examined (3 of 10). cloudflare for TypeScript 7.3.0 and Python 5.9.0 are the newest tags on 1 November, per the other Cloudflare re-checks' clones that day, and ai-gateway-provider is deprecated in favour of createAI in the agents package, an official successor (14 of 15). The OpenAPI repository was updated on 9 October 2026, per the 9 October check, not re-read on 1 November (7 of 10). 30 + 5 + 5 + 11 + 3 + 14 + 7 = 75.

Eden AI 58

Closed service, read on the model lines. The docs repository changed on 5 and 6 November 2026, including retiring Nova Reel and Veo from video generation, and the terms were updated 22 October (30). No public changelog, so dated API changes in the last 90 days come only from docs commits (12 of 20). Chat support within 48 working hours, no public changelog (8). No SDK of its own, and the MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry (5). Nothing to judge package health by beyond the docs repository (3). 30+12+8+5+3 = 58.

Schema & documentation Eden AI +6

Cloudflare AI Gateway 75

Router, scored on the API lines. Cloudflare's public OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, updated 9 October 2026, has 36 paths and 67 operations under /ai-gateway and includes POST /ai/run. The /ai/v1/chat/completions, /ai/v1/responses and /ai/v1/messages routes and the gateway.ai.cloudflare.com endpoints are not in it (20 of 25). An AI Gateway llms.txt and a Markdown copy of every page (10). Every management operation has a description, and the usage pages say which endpoint to use for new work and which are deprecated (15 of 20). Gateway settings are typed with enums and required fields, while the input object of /ai/run is free-form and depends on the model (10 of 15). Curl, SDK and Worker examples on most pages. No table of gateway error codes was found. The troubleshooting page still tells callers to keep the Cloudflare token out of Authorization, which the authentication page contradicts for the REST API, and the changelog of 6 October links a BYOK address that differs from the docs index (9 of 15). A dated changelog with RSS. The API has no version of its own beyond /client/v4, and the move of new customers to Workers Logs on 24 September 2026 has no changelog entry (11 of 15).

Eden AI 81

Router, scored on the API lines. OpenAPI 3.1 document for v3 (version 3.0.0, 46 paths) at api.edenai.run/v3/docs/openapi.json, plus a management API spec (25). llms.txt on the site and in the docs, llms-full.txt and Markdown pages (10). llms.txt states when to use Eden AI and when not to, and the docs separate chat models from expert models (17). Requests follow the OpenAI shape, and expert-model tools on the MCP server carry JSON Schema inputs (12). Examples throughout, but the spec documents only 200, 201, 202, 302 and 422, while llms.txt names 401 and 451 for region refusals (10). Versioned /v3 path, but no public changelog was found (7). 25+10+17+12+10+7 = 81.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCloudflare AI GatewayEden AIEdge
Reliability16%206633Cloudflare AI Gateway +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27581Eden AI +6
Agent ergonomics13%16.27375Eden AI +2
Security & auth14%17.58082Eden AI +2
Payments & pricing10%12.55230Cloudflare AI Gateway +22
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87558Cloudflare AI Gateway +17
Transparency & trust7%8.87455Cloudflare AI Gateway +19
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 67.8/100C 59.9/100

Facts side by side

FactCloudflare AI GatewayEden AI
KindModel routerModel router
VendorCloudflare, Inc.Eden AI SAS
Hosted endpointhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/aihttps://mcp.edenai.run/mcp
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402payer tooling onlyno
LicenceProprietary 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-Clausenone
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-212026-11-05
Terms last updated2025-09-122026-10-22
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-10-22
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity251k npm/wknone
Agent reviews3/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

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 and log ID formats changed in October 2026 with same-day notice.

Eden AI

Eden AI gives one OpenAI-compatible key to about 1,000 models and expert models such as OCR, speech and translation, with an EU-only endpoint, per-key guardrails and no stored content by default. No status page, SLA or changelog was found, and its own pages disagree on the default rate limit.

Before you call either

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
  6. Use createAI from the agents package for new AI SDK code. ai-gateway-provider is deprecated and gets no new work

Eden AI

  1. Read GET https://api.edenai.run/v3/models at run time for model ids, prices and regions instead of hard-coding them
  2. Use https://api.eu.edenai.run/v3 when data must stay in the EU, and pick another model on a 451 region_not_allowed
  3. Set max_tokens to 500 or more for reasoning models, or the answer can come back empty
  4. Pass a fallbacks list so a provider 429 or error retries inside one request
  5. Poll check_job for MCP tools marked long-running instead of calling them again

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cloudflare AI Gateway or Eden AI?

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 67.8 (B) on agent readiness against Eden AI's 59.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Eden AI leads on schema & documentation.

Do Cloudflare AI Gateway and Eden AI need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. Cloudflare AI Gateway has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai and Eden AI at https://mcp.edenai.run/mcp.

Other comparisons with Cloudflare AI Gateway or Eden AI

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