# Cloudflare AI Gateway vs SiliconFlow

> Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) to SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.md (~2,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-ai-gateway-vs-siliconflow.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 SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do llm inference.

- 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
- SiliconFlow: grade D, 46.7/100, rank #848 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/siliconflow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/siliconflow.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

### 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:
- Reliability, 66 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 60
- Security & auth, 75 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 52 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 47
- Transparency & trust, 73 against 51

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

### SiliconFlow (D)

Good for: Agents that want recent open-weight chat models, plus image, video and speech, behind one OpenAI-style key at low per-token prices, and can live without a status page or SLA.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Cloudflare AI Gateway loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA was found, and the terms disclaim any uptime or availability commitment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cloudflare AI Gateway | SiliconFlow | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 33 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 65 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 60 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 75 | 39 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +36 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 52 | 35 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +17 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 47 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 73 | 51 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.8 · B** | **46.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cloudflare AI Gateway | SiliconFlow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare, Inc. | SiliconFlow Labs Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai` | `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | 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 | Proprietary service under the SiliconFlow Terms of Use |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 251k npm/wk | none |

## 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.

**SiliconFlow.** Per-token prices for every listed model are public, and one key reaches chat, embeddings, reranking, image, video and speech through OpenAI-style and Anthropic-style routes. No status page, SLA, security page or official SDK was found, release notes stop at 11 June 2026, and several model removals are dated the same day as their notice.

## 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

### SiliconFlow

1. Set the OpenAI client's base URL to `https://api.siliconflow.com/v1`, or the Anthropic client's to `https://api.siliconflow.com/`, and send the key as a Bearer token
2. Take model ids from the model pages or `GET /v1/models`, not from the OpenAPI enum or the function calling guide, which list removed models
3. Check the `model` field of each response. On 11 June 2026 traffic for GLM-5 and Kimi-K2.5 was routed to successor models
4. Use `response_format` of `json_object` only where the model page says JSON Mode is supported, and keep `max_tokens` about 10,000 below the context length
5. Set the Claude Code environment variables by hand. The automated route pipes a script from an Amazon S3 bucket into bash

## Questions

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

Cloudflare AI Gateway scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against SiliconFlow's 46.7 (D), and leads in every scored category.

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

Both need an API key.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cloudflare AI Gateway or SiliconFlow

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