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Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run

Together AI Inference vs Vercel AI Gateway

Together AI Inference scores 67.8 (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, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 407 models comparisons

Together AI InferenceTogether Computer, Inc. · HTTP API B67.8/100#265 of 1171 Vercel AI GatewayVercel Inc. · Model router B66.7/100#306 of 1171

Which one, for what

Together AI Inference B

Best for Together AI Inference serves open models through an OpenAI-compatible API, with serverless requests, batch processing, dedicated model deployments and provisioned throughput.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 93 against 74

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Vercel AI Gateway loses 3 points for them

Watch for

A $15 credit purchase is required before platform access; no free trial

Vercel AI Gateway B

Best 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 60
  • Security & auth, 79 against 70
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 65

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

CategoryWeight this runTogether AI InferenceVercel AI GatewayEdge
Reliability16%206074Vercel AI Gateway +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29374Together AI Inference +19
Agent ergonomics13%16.28583Together AI Inference +2
Security & auth14%17.57079Vercel AI Gateway +9
Payments & pricing10%12.52020even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86579Vercel AI Gateway +14
Transparency & trust7%8.87370Together AI Inference +3
Negative events≤150-3
TotalB 67.8/100B 66.7/100

Facts side by side

FactTogether AI InferenceVercel AI Gateway
KindHTTP APIModel router
VendorTogether Computer, Inc.Vercel Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.together.ai/v1https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPaidPay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted service. The official Python SDK is Apache-2.0; served models retain their own licences.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 documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-162026-10-17
Terms last updatedno date given2026-06-01
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-06-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity10 stars29.6M npm/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (4)3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Together AI Inference

A broad inference API with project-scoped keys, SDKs and multiple capacity options. Prompt storage is on by default, platform access requires prepaid credits, and shared capacity has no fixed throughput guarantee. Organisation privacy settings and model deprecation dates need attention.

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

Together AI Inference

  1. Create a project-scoped key and set TOGETHER_API_KEY. Avoid deprecated legacy keys.
  2. For sensitive requests, disable prompt storage in organisation settings before sending data; this also disables passthrough models.
  3. Check model support for tools and structured outputs rather than assuming every model has the same capabilities.
  4. Back off on 429 and 503 responses. Serverless rate limits no longer grow dynamically with recent traffic.
  5. Check the deprecation schedule before choosing a model; Llama 3.3 70B Turbo is scheduled to leave serverless on 22 October 2026.

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, Together AI Inference or Vercel AI Gateway?

Together AI Inference scores 67.8 (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, security & auth and maintenance & community.

Do Together AI Inference and Vercel AI Gateway need an API key?

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

Can an agent call Together AI Inference and Vercel AI Gateway without installing anything?

Yes. Together AI Inference has a hosted endpoint at https://api.together.ai/v1 and Vercel AI Gateway at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1.

Other comparisons with Together AI Inference or Vercel AI Gateway

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