head to head · open source
headroom vs Portkey AI Gateway
headroom has 73,130 GitHub stars, 5,624 forks, 643 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Portkey AI Gateway has 13,037 stars, 1,306 forks, 262 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. headroom leads on adoption by 461% (73,130 vs 13,037 stars). headroom is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Portkey AI Gateway is written in TypeScript under MIT. headroom has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Portkey AI Gateway 10%. headroom was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (langchain, llm, mcp), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| headroom | Portkey AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-05-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.6K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick headroom if
- You weight community size — 73K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Portkey AI Gateway if
- You want the Portkey AI Gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Portkey AI Gateway fits your workflow better
About headroom
Headroom is an Apache 2.0 Python library, local proxy, agent wrapper and MCP server that compresses tool outputs, logs, files, RAG chunks and conversation history before they reach an LLM, and it is built for developers running AI coding agents or LLM applications who want to cut token usage without changing the answers they get.
read the full headroom overview →
About Portkey AI Gateway
Portkey AI Gateway is an open source TypeScript project that routes AI application requests through one API to many language, vision, audio, and image models. It belongs to the AI development platform ecosystem and is described as an AI gateway, LLM gateway, and generative AI gateway. The project is licensed under MIT, and its topics include llmops, langchain, mcp, mcp client, and mcp gateway.
read the full Portkey AI Gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is headroom or Portkey AI Gateway more popular?
headroom has 73,130 GitHub stars and Portkey AI Gateway has 13,037. headroom has the larger community by that measure.
Are headroom and Portkey AI Gateway free?
Both are open source. headroom is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Portkey AI Gateway under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between headroom and Portkey AI Gateway?
headroom is written in Python and Portkey AI Gateway in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, headroom or Portkey AI Gateway?
Choose headroom if you want the larger community (73,130 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Portkey AI Gateway if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.