Cloudflare AI Gateway
Shares rank 3 of 12 LLM routers by recommenders
People recommend it for quick, plug-and-play setup as a proxy for LLM API calls. Critics say it has fewer features than alternatives like OpenRouter and some model-handling problems.
People recommend it for quick, plug-and-play setup as a proxy for LLM API calls. Critics say it has fewer features than alternatives like OpenRouter and some model-handling problems.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy, convenient setup
“Set one up, get the proxy URL and set it through the env var, very plug-and-play”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “Writing a good Claude.md” “CloudFlare AI Gateway was quite convenient for me”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Web Search API”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Trouble finding or specifying models
“I get a model not found error when attempting to use the model in a conversation”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work” “I can't figure out how to specify models in the AI Gateway specifically”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Cloudflare Build” Fewer features than alternatives
“it had tons of limitations and almost none of the features of other offerings”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work” “It's pretty bad though compared to openrouter tbh”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Stripe to Buy OpenRouter for $7B”
Other LLM routers people recommend
The four most recommended other LLM routers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouter | 666 | 321 | 67% | 13 | 6 mo8 owners | Approved |
| OpenCode Zen | 36 | 16 | 69% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Cloudflare AI GatewayThis page | 9 | 7 | 56% | 5 | — | — |
| Cortecs | 9 | 2 | 82% | 6 | — | — |
| Amazon API Gateway | 9 | 9 | 50% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I can't figure out how to specify models in the AI Gateway specifically”
“CloudFlare AI Gateway was quite convenient for me”
“It's pretty bad though compared to openrouter tbh”
“I get a model not found error when attempting to use the model in a conversation”
“No luck either with custom providers from the AI Gateway working within CFOS”
“in it you hardcoded it to US providers”
“it had tons of limitations and almost none of the features of other offerings”
“it has a lot of nice features”
“Cloudflare AI gateway's budget control is static policies applied to a fixed time window”
“I love cloudflare ai gateway, been using it to bring some ai into the functionalities”
“They take the same 5% fee as OpenRouter does.”
“Cloudflare AI Gateway is reporting inaccurate/wrong price for flagship models such as Nano Banana 2”
“the cache hit rate was near zero despite the product being mature”
“I learned the hard way that I must use AI Gateway in this situation, but authentication is harder with it”
“Set one up, get the proxy URL and set it through the env var, very plug-and-play”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.