Curate-Me vs Portkey
Portkey proxies your LLM calls. Curate-Me governs your entire agent stack -- from the LLM request through to the execution environment.
Both platforms start at $49/mo with a free tier. The difference is what happens after the proxy.
What sets Curate-Me apart
Four capabilities that Portkey does not offer today.
Managed Runners
Secure OpenClaw sandbox containers with lifecycle management. Portkey has no execution environment.
HITL Approvals
Approval queues for high-cost or sensitive operations. Review and approve from the dashboard.
Immutable Audit Trail
Append-only log of every request, governance decision, and runner action. Time-travel replay.
Single Platform
Gateway + governance + runners + observability in one product. No vendor stitching required.
Feature-by-feature comparison
An honest side-by-side. Green checks mean the feature exists and works in production.
| Feature | Portkey | Curate-Me |
|---|---|---|
| LLM Gateway Proxy | ||
| Provider Count | 200+ | 17+ (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, Mistral, xAI, ...) |
| Cost Tracking | ||
| Budget Enforcement | Basic | Real-time, per-request + daily |
| Rate Limiting | Per-org, per-key | |
| PII Scanning | Basic | Regex + NER |
| Model Allowlists | ||
| HITL Approvals | ||
| Managed Runners | OpenClaw sandbox | |
| Immutable Audit Trail | ||
| Time-Travel Debug | ||
| Dashboard | ||
| Free Tier | 10K req/mo | 1K req/day (~30K/mo) |
| Starting Paid Price | $49/mo | $49/mo |
Comparison based on publicly available documentation as of February 2026.
When to choose Portkey
Portkey is a strong product. Here is where it genuinely excels.
200+ Provider Integrations
Portkey supports 200+ LLM providers out of the box. We currently support 17+ built-in providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, Mistral, xAI, and more) -- covering the models most teams actually use in production.
Dedicated Caching Layer
Portkey offers built-in semantic and exact-match response caching to reduce latency and cost. We do not yet offer a caching layer.
Mature Ecosystem
Portkey has a $15M Series A, 24K+ orgs, and 6K GitHub stars. They have stronger developer awareness and a more established community.
Bottom line: If you need 200+ provider integrations, semantic caching, or prompt management today, Portkey is a solid choice. If you need governance, runners, and audit trails, keep reading.
When to choose Curate-Me
Six capabilities Portkey does not offer -- and that you will need as your agent stack grows.
Human-in-the-Loop Approvals
High-cost or sensitive LLM requests are held in an approval queue. Reviewers see full context and approve or deny with one click. Portkey has no approval workflow.
Managed Runners
97-module runner control plane with OpenClaw sandbox containers. Lifecycle management, 4-tier access control, network phase separation. Portkey offers no execution environment.
Immutable Audit Trail
Every request, governance decision, and runner action is logged to an append-only audit log. Reconstruct exactly what any agent did, when, and why.
Time-Travel Debugging
Replay and inspect any agent execution step by step. See the exact state at each checkpoint. No other gateway offers this level of debuggability.
5-Step Safety Pipeline
Rate limiting, cost estimation, PII scanning, model allowlists, and HITL gates -- applied as a pipeline that short-circuits on first denial. Portkey has basic guardrails, not a full safety pipeline.
Deep PII Scanning
Regex and NER-based scanning catches API keys, credit card numbers, SSNs, and PII before any request hits a provider. Configurable deny or redact modes.
The stitching problem
Portkey is a gateway. To get governance, runners, and observability, you need to stitch together three or more tools -- and pay for all of them.
Portkey ($49) + E2B (~$50) + Langfuse ($25) = $124+ vs Curate-Me Growth at $199. The stitched stack gives you partial coverage across three vendors with three dashboards. Curate-Me's Growth plan includes everything -- plus HITL approvals, model allowlists, and immutable audit trails that no combination of point tools provides.
Pricing comparison
Both platforms offer a free tier and similar starting prices. The value diverges at the Growth tier and above.
“Portkey proxies your LLM calls. We govern your entire agent stack -- from the LLM request through to the execution environment.”
# Portkey gateway
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.portkey.ai/v1
x-portkey-api-key=pk_xxx# Curate-Me gateway + governance
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.curate-me.ai/v1/openai
X-CM-API-Key=cm_sk_xxxSwitching from Portkey is a one-line change. Your application code stays the same.
Start free.
1,000 requests per day.
Swap one base URL. Get cost control, PII scanning, rate limiting, HITL approvals, managed runners, and an immutable audit trail -- instantly.