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TOLVYN vs Portkey

Two different jobs

Portkey is a capable AI gateway — routing, caching, reliability, and guardrails across 1,600+ models. As of May 2026 it's part of Palo Alto Networks, folding into the Prisma AIRS security platform.

TOLVYN solves a narrower, deeper problem: knowing exactly which of your customers generated which dollar of AI spend — and being able to prove it later. Both products sit inline. The difference is what they're built around. Portkey optimizes for routing, reliability, and enterprise security posture. TOLVYN optimizes for financial accuracy you can defend in front of a CFO or an auditor.

Side by side

Capability TOLVYN Portkey
Primary job Financial attribution + audit ledger AI gateway / LLMOps + security
Per-end-customer cost attribution Yes Cost visibility, not the focus
Immutable hash-chained ledger, verifiable on demand Yes No
Hard budget enforcement at the proxy Yes Routing & guardrails
Independent product Yes Part of Palo Alto Networks
Best for Teams reselling AI to multiple paying clients Teams needing a broad gateway plus enterprise security

If your core need is routing across many models with enterprise security, Portkey fits. If your core need is attributing every API dollar to a specific customer with a tamper-evident record, that's TOLVYN.

A note on Portkey's direction

In April 2026 Palo Alto Networks announced its intent to acquire Portkey; the deal closed in May 2026. Portkey is now positioned as the AI gateway for Prisma AIRS, Palo Alto's enterprise security platform. That's a strong direction for teams who want gateway and security in one suite. It also means Portkey is now a component of a large security platform rather than an independent, focused tool. TOLVYN is independent and focused on one thing: the financial record of your AI spend.

The ledger is the difference

Observability tools tell you what happened. TOLVYN gives you a record you can prove wasn't altered. Every metered request writes one ledger entry, and the entries are chained.

Each ledger record is hash-chained (SHA-256) and signed with HMAC-SHA256 using a per-tenant key. Sequence numbers are allocated under a Postgres advisory lock per tenant — no gaps, no duplicates, even under concurrent writes. Anyone can re-derive the chain and pinpoint the first tampered record with tolvyn ledger verify. The ledger entry is written in the same transaction as the request it accounts for, so there are no orphaned or partial records.

That's what turns "our dashboard says we spent $X" into evidence a finance team or auditor can actually rely on. No mainstream observability tool ships a tamper-evident cost ledger — it's a different design goal.

Which should you choose?

Choose Portkey if…

  • You need routing and failover across many model providers.
  • You want guardrails and prompt management in the gateway.
  • You're standardizing on Palo Alto Networks for AI security.

Choose TOLVYN if…

  • You need to attribute every dollar to a team, service, user, or customer.
  • You need budgets and quotas that block runaway spend before it happens.
  • You need a tamper-evident audit trail finance or compliance can rely on.
  • You want metadata-only governance — no prompt or response content stored.

These aren't mutually exclusive. A team can route through one layer and keep TOLVYN as the financial system of record. They answer different questions.

Moving from Portkey

Moving from Portkey takes minutes — change the proxy endpoint, keep your existing code. See the Portkey migration guide.

Read the migration guide →   Start free