Which AI gateways and LLM routing vendors AI assistants name, Oct 2026
How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode answer 3 buyer questions on AI gateways and LLM routing: 15 answers, 19 Oct 2026, India.
What this page is. AEOLedger sells answer engine optimization services, so we have an interest in these results. 15 answers (3 questions × 5 runs), collected 19 October 2026 from one location, read by hand. Vendors are named only when an assistant named them; being listed here is a count, not an endorsement or a ranking. The data is downloadable as CSV.
Summary
- LiteLLM was named in 14 of 15 answers and first in 12. Portkey was named in 14 of 15 and Kong AI Gateway in 11.
- Comparison articles written by one gateway vendor were cited in 5 of 15 answers, and Google AI Mode named that vendor's product whenever it cited them.
- Self-hosting inside a VPC or Kubernetes cluster pulled open-source gateways into the answers: Envoy AI Gateway and Apache APISIX were named only on that question.
- 13 further vendors were named in 1 or 2 of 15 answers each.
- 2 further vendors named in 3 to 9 of 15 answers are not shown (see limits).
The 3 buyer questions
Written in buyer wording, without any vendor’s name. Each question was asked in a fresh session every run (runs per question: ChatGPT 3, Perplexity 1, Google AI Mode 1), so 5 answers per question and 15 in all.
| # | Type | Question |
|---|---|---|
| C3-1 | shortlist | “What is the best LLM gateway or router to manage multiple model providers in production?” |
| C3-2 | requirements | “Which LLM gateways give enterprise teams governance” |
| C3-3 | requirements | “Which tools let me self-host an LLM gateway inside my own VPC or Kubernetes cluster?” |
Who gets named
Named in X of N: answers whose text recommends or lists the vendor.
Apps, 19 October 2026, Bengaluru, India. ChatGPT (logged out, fresh chat, 3 runs per question); Perplexity (signed in to one account, fresh thread, 1 run per question); Google AI Mode (signed in, personalisation off, 1 run per question). N = 15 answers per vendor.
| Vendor | Answers | Named | By assistant |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiteLLM | 14 of 15 | ChatGPT 9/9, Perplexity 3/3, Google AI Mode 2/3 | |
| Portkey | 14 of 15 | ChatGPT 8/9, Perplexity 3/3, Google AI Mode 3/3 | |
| Kong AI Gateway | 11 of 15 | ChatGPT 7/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 2/3 | |
| Cloudflare AI Gateway | 8 of 15 | ChatGPT 5/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 2/3 | |
| Helicone | 6 of 15 | ChatGPT 5/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 | |
| Apache APISIX | 4 of 15 | ChatGPT 2/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| Envoy AI Gateway | 4 of 15 | ChatGPT 3/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 | |
| LLM Gateway (llmgateway.io) | 4 of 15 | ChatGPT 3/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 | |
| OpenRouter | 4 of 15 | ChatGPT 3/9, Perplexity 1/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 |
What gets cited
Domains the assistants linked as sources, counted once per answer.
| Domain | Type | Cited in |
|---|---|---|
| portkey.ai | cited site | 8 of 15 |
| docs.litellm.ai | cited site | 8 of 15 |
| github.com | cited site | 5 of 15 |
| docs.llmgateway.io | cited site | 5 of 15 |
| developers.cloudflare.com | cited site | 4 of 15 |
| docs.konghq.com | cited site | 4 of 15 |
| helicone.ai | cited site | 3 of 15 |
| openrouter.ai | cited site | 3 of 15 |
Method
- Fieldwork 19 Oct 2026, Bengaluru, India, consumer apps. 3 buyer questions written without any vendor name. ChatGPT was asked each question 3 times (logged out, fresh chat); Perplexity and Google AI Mode once each. 15 answers, every one read in full.
- A vendor counts as named when the answer recommends or compares it, including a row in a comparison table. Vendors mentioned only as an acquisition note, as 'the big names to avoid', or in follow-up suggestions are not counted. Product lines are counted under their company.
The full protocol is on the methodology page.
Limits
- 15 answers per category, 5 per question: enough to say 'named in every answer' or 'in none', not to order vendors in the middle (95% intervals overlap).
- One location (India), no VPN. Perplexity ran in one signed-in account and Google AI Mode signed in with personalisation off; logged-out results may differ.
- Companies we track are not named on this page. As anonymised vendors they appear as 'an AI gateway vendor' only when named in 10 or more of 15 answers, shown as '10+ of 15' without a per-assistant split, and are otherwise left out; their sites are left out of the sources list.
Data
Download the data (CSV): one row per vendor and per cited domain, with the count, N, assistant split, date and location. Licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with a link to this page.
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How to cite and changes
AEOLedger. “Which AI gateways and LLM routing vendors AI assistants name, Oct 2026.” AI Shortlist Index v1.0, 22 October 2026. https://aeoledger.com/research/ai-shortlist/ai-gateways/
- v1.0, 22 October 2026: first published.
Spotted an error? Write to hello@aeoledger.com. Corrections are dated here.