Routeplane vs Portkey
Both put one OpenAI-compatible API in front of every model provider. The difference is where governance runs, and who owns the data path.
Portkey is a mature, widely-adopted AI gateway with a large integration catalog and a polished hosted control plane. In May 2026 it was acquired by Palo Alto Networks; the open-source gateway has been frozen since, and the richer guardrails, caching, and governance features live in the paid hosted tiers.
Routeplane takes a different bet: governance runs in the data plane, in Rust, on the hot path, per-request data classification, region-locked routing, and PII/secret redaction happen before a request ever leaves the gateway, not as a hosted add-on. That makes sovereignty something you can prove per request rather than approximate by region of deployment.
Feature-by-feature
| Capability | routeplane | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI-compatible API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-request regulated-data classification | ✓ | ✗ |
| Region-locked routing enforced per request | ✓ | ✗ |
| Cross-cloud, vendor-neutral routing | ✓ | ✓ |
| PII / secret redaction in the data plane | ✓ | ◐ hosted Pro+ tier |
| Prompt-injection detection | ✓ | ◐ hosted for ML checks |
| Multi-currency FinOps & chargeback (USD + ₹) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Engine language / tail latency | ✓ Rust, no-GC | ◐ TS/Node (V8 GC) |
| Open-source gateway | ◐ self-host | ◐ OSS frozen (2026) |
| Integration catalog breadth | ◐ growing | ✓ 67 integrations |
Which should you choose?
Choose routeplane when
- A regulator (DPDP, GDPR, HIPAA) cares where each individual request goes, not just where your cluster is deployed.
- You want PII/secret redaction and injection checks running on the hot path, in your own data plane, not as a hosted dependency.
- Finance needs chargeback in the currency they actually report in (e.g. INR), per team and project.
- Predictable tail latency matters and you’d rather not pay a V8 garbage-collector tax on every request.
Choose Portkey when
- You need the largest integration catalog available today and don’t want to wait on provider coverage.
- You’re happy running governance in a hosted control plane and don’t have hard data-residency mandates.
- You want a feature-complete commercial product with a long adoption track record right now.
Migrating to routeplane
Migration is a base-URL change. Point your existing OpenAI SDK (or your current Portkey client’s OpenAI-compatible mode) at https://api.routeplane.ai/v1 and keep your code. Residency, guardrails, and cost attribution come back as x-routeplane-* response headers.
Frequently asked questions
Is Routeplane a drop-in replacement for Portkey?
For the core gateway surface, chat completions, embeddings, streaming, fallback, and routing, yes: it’s OpenAI-compatible, so adoption is a base-URL change. Routeplane is a different product where it counts: per-request sovereign routing and in-data-plane guardrails rather than a hosted control plane.
Did the Palo Alto Networks acquisition change Portkey?
Portkey was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in May 2026 and the open-source gateway has been frozen since. The hosted tiers continue, with security framing increasingly aligned to PANW. If a vendor-neutral, self-hostable data path matters to you, that’s worth weighing.
Does Routeplane support as many providers as Portkey?
Not yet, Portkey’s integration catalog is larger today. Routeplane’s coverage goal is parity-class breadth across the major providers; its differentiation is sovereignty, in-data-plane guardrails, and multi-currency FinOps, not catalog size.
See the residency header come back true.
Point your existing OpenAI-compatible client at routeplane and route your first sovereign request this week.