# Cloudflare Workers AI vs Vercel AI Gateway

> Cloudflare Workers AI scores 68.3 (B) to Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Cloudflare Workers AI scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Vercel AI Gateway leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- Cloudflare Workers AI: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #236 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-workers-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-workers-ai.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 Workers AI (B)

Good for: Agents that already run on Cloudflare Workers, or that want open-weight chat, embedding, reranking, speech and image models behind one token with a free daily allowance.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 74
- Payments & pricing, 52 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 70

Watch for: No SLA for Workers AI was found in the docs or the agreements read

### 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 75
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 72

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 Workers AI | 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) | 80 | 74 | Cloudflare Workers AI +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 52 | 20 | Cloudflare Workers AI +32 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 70 | Cloudflare Workers AI +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **68.3 · B** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cloudflare Workers AI | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | 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. Each hosted model carries its own open-weight licence, linked from its model page. The `cloudflare` SDKs are Apache-2.0, `workers-ai-provider` is MIT and the 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 | 2026-10-01 | 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 | 380k npm/wk | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Cloudflare Workers AI.** Per-model prices, rate limits and JSON Schemas are public, 10,000 neurons a day are free, and x402 payment is in beta on `/ai/run` for four models. No SLA was found, three models moved to paid-only access on 28 July 2026 with no notice, and several docs pages still use a model retired in May.

**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 Workers AI

1. Check the model page before calling. Seven models need Workers Paid or AI Gateway credits and return 403 with code 5035 on the Free plan
2. Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent until 00:00 UTC, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
3. Set `options.rejectIfBusy` to fail fast, or add `?queueRequest=true` for the batch route when the answer can wait
4. Send the same `x-session-affinity` value on every turn of a session to reach the prefix cache and the cached-input price
5. Keep paid frontier models under 20 requests a minute per model, or 50 with prepaid AI Gateway 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 Workers AI or Vercel AI Gateway?

Cloudflare Workers AI scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Vercel AI Gateway's 66.7 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Vercel AI Gateway leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

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

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

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

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

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- [Claude API vs Vercel AI Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anthropic-api-vs-vercel-ai-gateway.md)
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