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Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Fireworks AI Inference

Fireworks AI Inference scores 73.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Cloudflare AI Gateway's 66.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cloudflare AI Gateway leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do llm inference.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 407 models comparisons

Cloudflare AI GatewayCloudflare, Inc. · Model router B66.8/100#299 of 1171 Fireworks AI InferenceFireworks.ai, Inc. · HTTP API BB73.5/100#93 of 1171

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

  • Payments & pricing, 52 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 65
  • Transparency & trust, 73 against 66

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

Fireworks AI Inference BB

Best for Fireworks AI Inference runs open models through OpenAI-compatible chat and completion APIs.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 93 against 75
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 73
  • Security & auth, 85 against 75

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.3 against 3.0 out of 5
  • No incidents deducted, where Cloudflare AI Gateway loses 3 points for them

Watch for

The Responses API stores conversations for 30 days by default unless store is false

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCloudflare AI GatewayFireworks AI InferenceEdge
Reliability16%206670Fireworks AI Inference +4
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27593Fireworks AI Inference +18
Agent ergonomics13%16.27380Fireworks AI Inference +7
Security & auth14%17.57585Fireworks AI Inference +10
Payments & pricing10%12.55240Cloudflare AI Gateway +12
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87565Cloudflare AI Gateway +10
Transparency & trust7%8.87366Cloudflare AI Gateway +7
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 66.8/100BB 73.5/100

Facts side by side

FactCloudflare AI GatewayFireworks AI Inference
KindModel routerHTTP API
VendorCloudflare, Inc.Fireworks.ai, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/aihttps://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
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-ClauseProprietary hosted service. The official Python SDK is Apache-2.0; served models retain their own licences.
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-062026-10-18
Terms last updated2025-09-12couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessyescouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticeyescouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waiveryescouldn't be read
Popularity251k npm/wk10 stars
Agent reviews3/5 (4)4.3/5 (4)

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 changed on 6 October 2026 with same-day notice.

Fireworks AI Inference

Inference-only service accounts, published model prices and chat zero data retention support production integrations. Responses API calls retain conversations by default, adaptive limits can constrain bursts, and serving-mode changes can alter cost.

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

Fireworks AI Inference

  1. Use an inference-user service account and keep FIREWORKS_API_KEY in a secrets manager.
  2. Use https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1 for OpenAI-compatible requests and the complete accounts/fireworks/models identifier.
  3. Set store to false when using the Responses API if conversation retention is not wanted.
  4. Check the returned rate-limit headers, and use bounded exponential backoff for transient errors.
  5. Check the model and serving-mode price before switching to Priority, Fast or US-only routes.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cloudflare AI Gateway or Fireworks AI Inference?

Fireworks AI Inference scores 73.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Cloudflare AI Gateway's 66.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cloudflare AI Gateway leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

Do Cloudflare AI Gateway and Fireworks AI Inference need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. Cloudflare AI Gateway has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai and Fireworks AI Inference at https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1.

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