# Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Vercel AI Gateway

> Cloudflare AI Gateway and Vercel AI Gateway score within a point of each other for llm inference, 66.8 and 66.7 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Cloudflare AI Gateway and Vercel AI Gateway score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 66.8 (B) and 66.7 (B). Vercel AI Gateway leads on reliability and agent ergonomics. Both do llm inference.

- Cloudflare AI Gateway: grade B, 66.8/100, rank #295 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-ai-gateway.json
- Vercel AI Gateway: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #302 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-ai-gateway.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 326 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:
- Payments & pricing, 52 against 20

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

### Vercel AI Gateway (B)

Good for: Teams that want one key, one bill, budgets and failover in front of many model providers, especially on Vercel with OIDC.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 74 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 73

Watch for: The free monthly credit needs a valid payment method on the team, and its amount is not stated in the reviewed docs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cloudflare AI Gateway | Vercel AI Gateway | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 74 | Vercel AI Gateway +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 74 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 75 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 52 | 20 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +32 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 73 | 70 | Cloudflare AI Gateway +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **66.8 · B** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cloudflare AI Gateway | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model router | Model router |
| Vendor | Cloudflare, Inc. | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai` | `https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or 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 Vercel's Terms of Service and AI Product Terms, with Token Pass terms on its docs page. Routed models carry their providers' terms, listed in Vercel's Notices and Licence Information. The `@ai-sdk/gateway` provider is Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 251k npm/wk | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (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.

**Vercel AI Gateway.** Token prices pass through with no markup, prompts are not stored by the gateway, and budgets, provider failover and per-request logs are built in. The free monthly credit needs a card on file, rate limits are not published as numbers, no SLA covers the API, and the contractual promise not to train on content applies to Enterprise subscriptions 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

### Vercel AI Gateway

1. Read `GET https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/models` without a key to pick a model ID and check its price, context, ZDR and no-training flags before calling
2. Set `zeroDataRetention` or `disallowPromptTraining` to true in `providerOptions.gateway` on sensitive requests. Default routing ignores provider retention and training policies
3. Treat a 429 as retryable and honour `retry-after` when present. A 402 with `quota_for_entity_exceeded` is a spent budget, so do not retry it
4. On a Token Pass key, a 403 with `no_providers_available` means spent credit or a model outside the pass. Retry with a standard AI Gateway key, which bills credits
5. Set `inferenceRegion` when data residency matters. The default `global` may run inference outside the user's jurisdiction

## Questions

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

Cloudflare AI Gateway and Vercel AI Gateway score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 66.8 (B) and 66.7 (B). Vercel AI Gateway leads on reliability and agent ergonomics.

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

Cloudflare AI Gateway needs an API key. Vercel AI Gateway takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Cloudflare AI Gateway has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.


## For agents

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

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