Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Vercel AI Gateway
The question that decides it: Which platform do you already deploy on, and do you need documented gateway-level compliance?
Our verdict
On Cloudflare Workers: Cloudflare AI Gateway, because the core features are free on every plan. On Vercel: Vercel AI Gateway. If you need documented SOC 2 or HIPAA for the gateway itself, Vercel — Cloudflare publishes no AI Gateway-specific posture.
Why
Both of these are features of a hosting platform rather than standalone products, and both are priced to make you use the rest of the platform. That makes the decision mostly pre-made: you use the one belonging to the cloud your app already runs on, because the latency and integration story only works from inside.
Cloudflare's offer is unusually generous on features. Core gateway functionality — dashboard analytics, caching, rate limiting — is free on every Cloudflare plan including the free one, with no markup on provider tokens. DLP scanning for PII, financial and healthcare data is free on all plans, along with llama-guard-based guardrails. Dynamic Routing gives visual, code-free routing by user segment, geography, content or A/B split. Spend limits can be scoped by model, provider or custom metadata with automatic blocking. That is a lot of governance to get for nothing, and materially more than Vercel offers — Vercel has no semantic cache and no native content guardrails at all.
Vercel's offer is cleaner economics and better paperwork. Zero markup on tokens including BYOK, and no credit-purchase fee, against Cloudflare's 5% on credit purchases through Unified Billing. Vercel publishes 360 models and a public unauthenticated models endpoint with pricing; Cloudflare publishes roughly 23 upstream providers, no model count, and no public catalog endpoint. On compliance, Vercel documents SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA on enterprise and GDPR, and offers per-request ZDR and provider allowlists at no cost. Cloudflare publishes no SOC 2, HIPAA or ZDR posture specific to AI Gateway — the wider Cloudflare attestations may cover it, but you would need to confirm scope rather than cite a document.
That compliance gap is the one thing that should override platform convenience. If a security reviewer needs a document naming the gateway, Vercel has one and Cloudflare does not. Everything else here is a preference; that is a procurement blocker.
Which one, concretely
Choose Cloudflare AI Gateway if
- You already run on Cloudflare Workers
- You want caching, analytics, rate limiting, DLP and guardrails free on every plan
- You want visual code-free routing by geography, user segment or A/B split
- You want spend limits scoped by model, provider or custom metadata
Choose Vercel AI Gateway if
- You already deploy on Vercel and use the AI SDK
- You need documented SOC 2, ISO 27001 or HIPAA covering the gateway
- You want no fee at all — no token markup and no credit-purchase fee
- You want a public models endpoint and a wider published catalog
What catches people out
- Cloudflare publishes no SOC 2, HIPAA or ZDR posture specific to AI Gateway. If you need attestation naming the service, verify scope before relying on it.
- Cloudflare's Unified Billing adds 5% on credit purchases, and log storage caps at 100,000 logs total on Workers Free, with Logpush restricted to Workers Paid.
- Vercel's team-wide ZDR and team-wide provider allowlists are metered at $0.10 per 1,000 requests, though the per-request versions are free.
- Vercel's BYOK requires purchased credits, can silently fall back to Vercel credentials, and is excluded from budgets.
- Neither is self-hostable, and Cloudflare has a much narrower upstream provider list (~23) than a marketplace like OpenRouter.
Side by side
4 of 20 fields differ, marked with a dot. Every figure links to the vendor page it came from. Blank values read Not published rather than No — silence from a vendor is not a negative answer.
| Field | Cloudflare AI Gateway | Vercel AI Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of leaving Derived score, higher is easier | 58/78 Some work to leave | 64/84 Some work to leave |
| What kind of product Category | Cloud platform | Managed gateway |
| Who runs it Deployment model | Managed only | Managed only |
| Licence Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Models available Models available | Not published | 200–350 |
| Model providers reachable Upstream providers | 24 | Not published |
| Markup on model prices Token markup | None | None |
| Fee to add funds Credit purchase fee | 5% | None |
| Monthly cost per person Seat fee | None | $20/user/mo |
| Can use your own provider accounts BYOK supported | Yes | Yes |
| Does not retain your data Zero data retention | Not published | Yes |
| SOC 2 audited SOC 2 audited | Not published | Yes |
| Will sign a HIPAA agreement HIPAA BAA | Not published | Yes |
| Response caching Response caching | Yes | Yes |
| Similar-question caching Semantic cache | Not published | No |
| Content guardrails Content guardrails | Yes | No |
| Strips personal data PII redaction | Yes | Not published |
| Rule-based routing Conditional routing | Yes | Yes |
| Spending limits Budget controls | Yes | Yes |
| Rate limits Rate limits | Yes | Yes |
| Usage dashboards and logs Observability | Yes | Yes |
Verified 3 days ago for Cloudflare AI Gateway and Verified 3 days ago for Vercel AI Gateway. Want more fields, or a third option in the mix? Open these two in the full comparison tool.
Common questions
Is Cloudflare AI Gateway free?
The core features — dashboard analytics, caching, rate limiting — are free on every Cloudflare plan, and DLP scanning is free on all plans, with no markup on provider tokens. But Unified Billing adds 5% on credit purchases, log storage caps at 100,000 logs on Workers Free, and Logpush requires Workers Paid.
Does Cloudflare AI Gateway have SOC 2?
Cloudflare publishes no SOC 2, HIPAA or zero-data-retention posture specific to AI Gateway. Broader Cloudflare attestations exist, but you would need to confirm they cover this service rather than citing a document that names it. Vercel AI Gateway does document SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA on enterprise and GDPR.
Which has better guardrails?
Cloudflare, clearly. It offers free DLP scanning for PII, financial and healthcare data plus llama-guard-based guardrails on all plans. Vercel AI Gateway has no native content guardrails and no semantic cache.