Compare AI API gateways

A unified AI API gateway puts many model providers behind one endpoint, so you can switch models without rewriting your integration. They differ far more than the marketing suggests — mostly in how they bill you, what they do when an upstream provider fails, and whether the models you need are actually there. These pages compare Api.Airforce to the alternatives, point by point.

Comparisons

What to compare

If you are evaluating gateways yourself, these are the five things that decide the answer.

Pricing model

Pay-as-you-go on real token usage, or a subscription with a quota you may not use? Watch for a markup applied on top of the upstream provider price, and whether cached tokens are billed at the cheaper cached rate.

Free tier

Whether you can try the API at all without a card, and what the limit is. Some gateways gate the free tier behind an identity check to keep bots out.

API compatibility

An OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions endpoint means most SDKs and clients work by swapping a base URL. Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages matters if your code targets Claude directly.

Model coverage

Not just the count. Check whether the models you actually use are there, whether image and audio models are included, and how quickly new releases land.

Failover

A gateway that routes one model through several upstream providers can survive one of them going down. A gateway with a single upstream per model cannot.