MindBalancer vs Portkey
Portkey is an open-core AI gateway with a strong hosted offering and mature guardrails. MindBalancer is fully self-hosted, Apache-2.0, with no hosted control plane — administered over SQL.
This is an honest side-by-side. If hosted convenience and guardrails matter most, Portkey is compelling; if the data must stay in your infrastructure, MindBalancer is built for that.
| Capability | MindBalancer | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-hosted single Go binary | Hosted + open-core self-host |
| Control plane | None — fully in your infra | Hosted control plane (or self-managed) |
| Admin interface | MySQL protocol + REST + dashboard | Dashboard + config |
| Providers | 6 branded + any OpenAI-compatible | Many providers |
| Guardrails | Roadmap | Strong guardrails |
| Load balancing / failover | 4 algorithms, 3-state breaker | Yes |
| Response cache | Sharded LRU + TTL, dedupe, compression | Yes |
| Consensus / referee | Yes, built-in | Varies |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Open-core |
| Best for | Data-sensitive teams wanting full self-host + SQL admin | Teams wanting hosted convenience + guardrails |
Where Portkey wins
- A polished hosted control plane — less to run yourself.
- Mature guardrails and prompt-management features.
- Broad provider and integration coverage.
Where MindBalancer wins
- No hosted control plane — nothing leaves your network, ever.
- Apache-2.0 with the full feature set self-hosted.
- A SQL admin plane over the MySQL wire protocol.
- A single Go binary that's simple to run air-gapped.
FAQ
Does MindBalancer have a hosted option?
No — and that's the point. It's fully self-hosted; there's no third-party control plane your traffic passes through. Ideal for regulated or air-gapped environments.
Can I run MindBalancer air-gapped?
Yes. It's a single Go binary with SQLite state; point it at your own providers (including local Ollama) and nothing needs to reach the public internet except the upstreams you configure.
What about guardrails?
Guardrails and policy features are on the roadmap. Today MindBalancer focuses on routing, failover, caching, rate limiting and observability. Run it behind your own policy layer if you need one now.