Vercel AI GatewayvsGroq

Full side-by-side comparison — features, pricing, platforms, and which one wins in 2026.

Vercel AI Gateway

LLM APIs & Inference

Unified API gateway for routing app calls across hundreds of AI models

Full review →Website ↗

Groq

LLM APIs & Inference

The fastest AI inference platform — LPU-powered, 1000+ tokens/sec

Full review →Website ↗
FeatureVercel AI GatewayGroq
CategoryLLM APIs & InferenceLLM APIs & Inference
PricingFree monthly credits; pay-as-you-go at provider list price with no markupFree tier available, pay-per-token for production
GitHub Stars——
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb
Key Features
  • ✓ Single API key
  • ✓ Hundreds of models
  • ✓ Unified model API
  • ✓ Provider routing and fallbacks
  • ✓ Automatic retries
  • ✓ Usage and spend monitoring
  • ✓ Bring Your Own Key
  • ✓ AI SDK and OpenAI-compatible APIs
  • ✓ LPU hardware — custom chips for inference, not repurposed GPUs
  • ✓ GPT OSS 120B at 500 tok/s ($0.15/M input)
  • ✓ GPT OSS 20B at 1000 tok/s ($0.075/M input)
  • ✓ Llama 4 Scout 17B at 750 tok/s with 131K context + vision
  • ✓ Qwen3-32B at 400 tok/s with 131K context
  • ✓ Compound AI systems with web search + code execution
  • ✓ Whisper transcription ($0.04-0.11/hour)
  • ✓ OpenAI-compatible API — drop-in replacement
  • ✓ Free developer tier: 250-300K TPM, 1K RPM
Pros
  • + One endpoint for many model providers
  • + Centralized usage, spend, and observability
  • + Automatic retries and fallbacks improve production resilience
  • + No token markup according to Vercel docs
  • + Works with AI SDK and OpenAI-compatible API clients
  • + Fastest inference available (500-1000 tok/s)
  • + Free tier with generous limits (250K+ tokens/min)
  • + OpenAI-compatible API — swap one line of code
  • + Latest open-source models (GPT OSS, Llama 4, Qwen3)
  • + Compound AI for agentic workflows (search + code exec)
Cons
  • − Best fit for teams already building web apps or using Vercel/AI SDK
  • − Underlying provider terms and model limits still apply
  • − BYOK fallback can still consume AI Gateway credits
  • − Exact model pricing should be checked in the current Gateway model list
  • − Cloud-only — cannot self-host LPU hardware
  • − Rate limits on free tier (1K RPM)
  • − Smaller model catalog than running locally via Ollama
Tags
ai-gatewaymodel-routingvercelai-sdkllm-apibyokobservability
inferencefastfreehardware

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