# Novita AI vs Vercel AI Gateway

> Vercel AI Gateway scores 66.7 (B) to Novita AI's 53.5 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Vercel AI Gateway scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Novita AI's 53.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Novita AI leads on payments & pricing. Both do llm inference.

- Novita AI: grade D, 53.5/100, rank #784 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/novita-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/novita-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

### Novita AI (D)

Good for: Agents that want many open-weight models at per-token prices behind one OpenAI-style key, with keys that can be limited by model, IP and expiry.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 20

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

Watch for: No status page or SLA was found on the home page, the docs index or the docs site map. The home page states 99.5% uptime with no supporting document

### 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 28
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 62
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 72
- Security & auth, 79 against 65
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 56

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 | Novita AI | Vercel AI Gateway | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 28 | 74 | Vercel AI Gateway +46 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 74 | Vercel AI Gateway +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 83 | Vercel AI Gateway +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 20 | Novita AI +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 79 | Vercel AI Gateway +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 70 | Vercel AI Gateway +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **53.5 · D** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Novita AI | Vercel AI Gateway |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model router |
| Vendor | Novita AI | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.novita.ai/openai` | `https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Novita AI Terms of Service. The agent skill and the MCP server are MIT | 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 | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-05 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-13 | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | 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 | 6 stars, 1.4k npm/wk | 29.6M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Novita AI.** Per-token prices for about 140 language models are public, and each key can carry an expiry, a model allowlist and a source IP allowlist. No status page, SLA or security.txt was found, the per-model rate limit figures are drawn by script, and both vendor SDK repositories are archived while the docs still point to them.

**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

### Novita AI

1. Set the OpenAI client base URL to `https://api.novita.ai/openai` and send the key as `Authorization: Bearer`. Keys start with `sk_`
2. Do not close a connection to stop generation. A request that reached the model is billed in full under status 499, so cap output with `max_tokens`
3. On 429, check whether the code is `RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` or `TOKEN_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` and back off exponentially. No `Retry-After` header is documented
4. Read the changelog for retirement notices before pinning a model id. One retirement in October 2026 came with 11 days' notice
5. Ask the account owner for a key with an expiry, a model access policy and an IP allowlist. Keys are created and deleted only in the console

### 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, Novita AI or Vercel AI Gateway?

Vercel AI Gateway scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Novita AI's 53.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Novita AI leads on payments & pricing.

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

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

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

Yes. Novita AI has a hosted endpoint at https://api.novita.ai/openai and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.


## For agents

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

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