Platform comparison
AgentSky vs Portkey
Portkey is an AI gateway: it sits between your application and model providers, adding routing, caching, automatic retries, and real-time observability to LLM calls. AgentSky is an agent runtime: one call selects a harness and model, and AgentSky runs the agent on a persistent cloud computer. Portkey optimises LLM calls; AgentSky executes long-horizon agentic tasks.
What is Portkey
Portkey is a production AI gateway that intercepts LLM API calls and adds routing, automatic fallback, semantic caching, load balancing, and real-time logs, traces, and metrics. It supports 200+ LLM providers through an OpenAI-compatible API. Portkey has a free tier and paid plans for teams that need higher volume and compliance controls.
What is AgentSky
AgentSky is a cloud agent platform. One API call selects a supported harness (Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, and five others) and a compatible model; AgentSky provisions a persistent, crash-resistant cloud computer, boots the harness, streams task events back, and optionally attaches 2000+ channel connectors.
Feature comparison
How they compare
| Cloud agent platformAgentSky | AI gateway and observabilityPortkey | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A running cloud agent — harness, model, persistent compute, event stream — behind one API call | An AI gateway with routing, caching, fallbacks, and full observability across your LLM calls |
| Primary layer | Agent runtime: provisions compute, boots harness, manages workspace, streams events | LLM gateway: intercepts and optimises model API calls; does not run agents or manage compute |
| Agent harness | 8 maintained harnesses shipped and operated by AgentSky | Not included — Portkey routes completion requests; you build the agent loop yourself |
| Persistent compute | Isolated cloud computer per session; crash-resistant, resumes mid-task automatically | Not provided — Portkey is stateless request routing; compute is your responsibility |
| Observability | Per-session cost, event stream, and task status; in-depth metrics via the Arena | Real-time logs, traces, latency, cost, and error metrics per LLM request; custom dashboards |
| Semantic caching | Not a caching layer — each session is a live agent execution | Built-in semantic cache that can reduce LLM cost by reusing similar-query responses |
| Pricing model | Pay per task at list pricing; BYO subscription cuts model cost to $0; no card required | Free tier available; paid plans from $49/month for higher request volume and team features |
| Best for | Running complete agentic coding tasks immediately without building agent infrastructure | Production LLM apps that need reliability, observability, and cost controls at the completion layer |
Product details reflect public information. Verify changing facts in the competitor's official docs and current pricing.
When to choose Portkey
Portkey is the right choice for these workloads
Choose Portkey when you need production-grade reliability and observability for LLM API calls — automatic retries and fallback when a provider is unavailable, semantic caching to reduce cost and latency, and real-time dashboards that show request volume, error rates, and cost per model. Portkey is the right fit when your application owns the agent loop and needs the LLM call layer to be robust and measurable.
FAQ
Common questions
Complete agent infrastructure