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Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

Cloudflare AI Gateway vs RouterPlus

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against RouterPlus's 51.2 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 190 models comparisons

Cloudflare AI GatewayCloudflare, Inc. · Model router B66.8/100#282 of 1010 RouterPlusRouterPlus · Model router D51.2/100#777 of 1010

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 45
  • Schema & documentation, 75 against 59
  • Security & auth, 75 against 62
  • Payments & pricing, 52 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 44
  • Transparency & trust, 73 against 38

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

RouterPlus D

Best for Teams that call Claude and GPT models from one key and want the cost of every call in the response, with their own provider keys where they have them.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No terms of service, privacy policy, status page, changelog or security.txt found for the gateway

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCloudflare AI GatewayRouterPlusEdge
Reliability16%206645Cloudflare AI Gateway +21
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27559Cloudflare AI Gateway +16
Agent ergonomics13%16.27371Cloudflare AI Gateway +2
Security & auth14%17.57562Cloudflare AI Gateway +13
Payments & pricing10%12.55240Cloudflare AI Gateway +12
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87544Cloudflare AI Gateway +31
Transparency & trust7%8.87338Cloudflare AI Gateway +35
Negative events≤15-3-2
TotalB 66.8/100D 51.2/100

Facts side by side

FactCloudflare AI GatewayRouterPlus
KindModel routerModel router
VendorCloudflare, Inc.RouterPlus
Hosted endpointhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/aihttps://api.routerplus.com/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
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-ClauseClosed service. No terms of service for the gateway were found on routerplus.com or app.routerplus.com on 13 October 2026. The only terms on the site govern the capacity request form and name EVO HQ Inc, a Delaware corporation (https://routerplus.com/capacity/terms/).
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-06none
Terms last updated2025-09-12no document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity251k npm/wknone

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.

RouterPlus

The docs are written for agents, every model price is public, and each response carries its own cost. No terms of service, privacy policy, status page or changelog were found. Signup adds no free credit, and the chat catalogue is Claude and GPT only.

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

RouterPlus

  1. Send max_tokens on every request. Without it the balance hold assumes up to 32,768 output tokens and can return insufficient_quota on a small balance
  2. Switch on error_type. Retry rate_limit after retry-after, and stop on insufficient_quota, which needs a person to add credit or raise a cap
  3. Don't add a retry loop on top of the SDK's. There is no idempotency key, so a retry that reaches a provider is billed again
  4. Copy model ids from GET /v1/models or /api/models.json. An unknown id is a 404 and the gateway never substitutes one
  5. Use /v1/messages for Claude when you need thinking or server tools, and /v1/chat/completions with response_format only for GPT ids

Questions

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

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against RouterPlus's 51.2 (D), and leads in every scored category.

Do Cloudflare AI Gateway and RouterPlus need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

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

Other comparisons with Cloudflare AI Gateway or RouterPlus

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