What are Providers?
Providers in Portkey AI Gateway are integrations with AI model providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock, and more. The gateway acts as a unified interface, allowing you to:- Route to 250+ models from a single API
- Switch providers without changing your code
- Implement fallbacks across different providers
- Load balance between multiple providers
- Compare models from different providers side-by-side
How Routing Works
Portkey uses a unified OpenAI-compatible API format. When you make a request:- Specify the provider using the
providerheader or config - Gateway transforms your request to the provider’s format
- Provider responds and gateway transforms it back to OpenAI format
- You receive a consistent response structure
Basic Routing Example
Advanced Routing with Configs
Use configs for sophisticated routing strategies:Fallback Routing
Automatically fallback to another provider if the primary fails:Load Balancing
Distribute requests across multiple providers:Conditional Routing
Route based on request properties:Provider Authentication
Each provider requires authentication. You can provide credentials in multiple ways:1. Direct Header
2. Provider-Specific Headers
3. Config-Based
4. Virtual Keys (Enterprise)
Store keys securely in Portkey and reference them:Supported Features by Provider
Different providers support different features:| Feature | OpenAI | Anthropic | Azure | Bedrock | Gemini | Cohere |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat Completions | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Streaming | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Embeddings | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Image Generation | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Function Calling | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Vision | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Audio | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Provider-Specific Headers
Some providers support additional headers:OpenAI
OpenAI-Organization: Organization IDOpenAI-Project: Project IDOpenAI-Beta: Beta features
Anthropic
anthropic-version: API version (default: 2023-06-01)anthropic-beta: Beta features
Azure OpenAI
api-key: Azure API keyapi-version: API version (required)
AWS Bedrock
- AWS credentials via environment variables or IAM roles
awsRegion: AWS regionawsAccessKeyId,awsSecretAccessKey,awsSessionToken
Next Steps
Supported Providers
View the complete list of 78+ supported providers
OpenAI Integration
Learn about OpenAI integration
Fallback Routing
Implement automatic fallbacks
Load Balancing
Distribute requests across providers