Why companies look for an alternative to Kong AI Gateway
From Kong AI Gateway’s own pricing and documentation, checked 7 November 2026:
- A fee per model: Kong Konnect Plus prices AI Gateway at $100 a month per model proxied by AI plugins, up to 5 models, with 1 million requests included and $200 a month per additional million.
- The AI plugins that control cost are paid: AI Proxy Advanced, AI Rate Limiting Advanced and AI Semantic Cache are only available as part of the AI Gateway Enterprise offering, or as add-ons on Plus.
- Identity and audit are Enterprise-only: RBAC, SSO and audit logging are Enterprise only, Enterprise is custom-priced and billed annually, and Konnect retains audit logs for 7 days.
- One model per route: with the AI Proxy plugin, a request for a different model returns a 400 error, so every model you allow is another route and plugin config to maintain.
- You bring every provider: the plugin authenticates with your own provider key, so each provider's contract, quota and retention terms stay yours to manage.
What Standard Compute does differently
A single API gives you frontier and open-source models, and it routes each step to the cheapest model that can do it and the cheapest provider fast enough to serve it.
There is no per-model fee and no plugin to license for routing or budgets. Routine agent steps go to a model priced for that work, the hard step goes to a frontier model, and each request is served by the cheapest provider that meets the latency and tokens-per-second bar. You pay a flat monthly plan per person or app.
Control is set once for the company:
Processing in Europe
Set a Europe rule for your company, a team or a single key, and every request, including retries and fallbacks, is served only by approved European inference endpoints. If no European endpoint can serve it, the request is refused before your prompt is sent. Our EU gateway terminates TLS and runs in Finland, and your account data is stored in Frankfurt.
Zero data retention
Turn on zero data retention for your company, a team or a key, and every request is routed only to inference endpoints that commit to keeping no copy of your data. Teams and keys inherit the requirement and can never switch it off underneath you.
No training
Standard Compute never trains on your prompts or outputs. With a region rule or zero retention turned on, every request goes only to providers that commit not to train on it.
Single sign-on
Connect Microsoft Entra ID or any SAML identity provider so your people sign in with their work accounts. Employees sign in to Claude Desktop and Claude Code with their Microsoft work account through our EU gateway, and access follows your Entra groups through SCIM provisioning.
Teams and keys
Organize your company into teams, invite colleagues by email, and give every person and every app its own key, all under one company account.
Budgets
Every person and app gets a fixed monthly budget that never overruns, and you can set spending caps per key and for the whole company. Optional top-off from a prepaid company balance keeps critical agents running.
Allow-lists
Choose exactly which inference providers may handle your data, for the whole company, a team or a single key. New providers are never added without an admin's approval, and fallbacks can never route around your list. Decide which models each key can use.
Audit
Every admin change is recorded with before and after values, and you can export a record of every request showing the model, the provider that served it and the region rule in force, kept for 12 months.
Contract
Sign our Data Processing Agreement in the dashboard. It commits us to no training on your data, no retention of your content, and breach notification within 72 hours. We publish every sub-processor and give you 14 days' notice before adding a new one.
Standard Compute and Kong AI Gateway compared
| Standard Compute | Kong AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Flat monthly plan per person or app with no per-token surprises; Stripe invoices with your company name and VAT number | Plus from $25 a month plus usage; $100 a month per proxied model; $200 per additional million requests; Enterprise custom, billed annually; model usage billed by each provider |
| Cost routing | Each step goes to the cheapest model that can do it and the cheapest provider fast enough to serve it | Load-balancing algorithms in AI Proxy Advanced, an Enterprise plugin |
| Models | Claude, GPT, Gemini and open models (GLM, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Kimi) through one API | The providers you configure with your own keys |
| Processing in Europe | Europe rule per company, team or key; retries and fallbacks stay on approved European endpoints; refused before sending if none qualifies | EU control plane and EU data plane regions on AWS, Azure and GCP; model processing depends on each provider you connect |
| Zero data retention | Per company, team or key; lower levels cannot switch it off | Depends on each provider contract you bring |
| Training on your data | Never trains on prompts or outputs | Depends on each provider contract you bring |
| Single sign-on | SAML SSO, Microsoft Entra ID included; Claude Desktop and Claude Code sign-in with a Microsoft work account, SCIM from Entra | OIDC and SAML SSO on Enterprise |
| Teams and keys | Teams, roles, a key per person and per app | Consumers and consumer groups; RBAC on Enterprise |
| Spend limits | Fixed monthly budget per key; requests are refused once it is used; caps per key and per company | Token and cost limits per consumer, model or provider with AI Rate Limiting Advanced, an Enterprise plugin |
| Provider and model allow-lists | Provider allow-list per company, team or key; new providers need an admin; models chosen per key | One model per AI Proxy route; consumer ACLs on AI Models in AI Gateway 2.0 |
| Audit log | Admin log with before and after values; request export with model, provider and region rule, kept 12 months | Audit logging on Enterprise, retained 7 days |
| What you operate | Managed service; nothing to host | Your data plane in hybrid mode, or Kong-managed Dedicated Cloud Gateways at $500 a month per control plane |
When Kong AI Gateway fits
Kong AI Gateway fits a company that already runs Kong for its APIs, wants AI traffic under the same gateway team, and holds its own provider contracts.
Moving from Kong AI Gateway to Standard Compute
Standard Compute’s API runs on stdcmpt.com. https://eu.stdcmpt.com is our EU gateway in Finland.
- Create a company workspace and set the rules once for the company: a Europe rule, zero data retention, and the providers and models you approve. Teams and keys inherit them.
- Map Kong consumers to Standard Compute keys, one per person and per app, each with its own monthly budget.
- Either point clients straight at
https://eu.stdcmpt.com/v1, or keep the Kong route your clients already call and change its upstream to Standard Compute, so one route serves every model you allow. - Point Claude Code at
https://eu.stdcmpt.com. - Connect Microsoft Entra ID or your SAML identity provider so your people sign in with their work accounts, and set up Claude Desktop and Claude Code sign-in with Microsoft work accounts.
plugins:
- name: ai-proxy
config:
route_type: llm/v1/chat
auth:
header_name: Authorization
header_value: Bearer ${{ env "DECK_OPENAI_API_KEY" }}
model:
provider: openai
name: gpt-4from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
base_url="https://eu.stdcmpt.com/v1",
api_key=os.environ["STANDARD_COMPUTE_API_KEY"],
)
# "standardcompute" sends each step to the cheapest
# model that can do it. Or pin a model:
# model="anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5"
client.chat.completions.create(
model="standardcompute",
messages=messages,
)# Claude Code adds /v1/messages itself
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://eu.stdcmpt.com
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=YOUR_STANDARD_COMPUTE_KEY
claudeQuestions
Is there an alternative to Kong AI Gateway without a fee per model?
Standard Compute has no per-model fee: every model, including Claude, GPT, Gemini and open models, is available through one API on a flat monthly plan per person or app.
Enterprise AI gateway comparison: Portkey vs LiteLLM vs Kong AI Gateway for a regulated company?
Portkey, LiteLLM and Kong govern provider keys you bring yourself. Standard Compute also supplies the models under one DPA, with a Europe rule that keeps retries and fallbacks on approved European endpoints and refuses a request before sending if none qualifies.
Can we set hard spend limits per developer without an Enterprise plugin?
Every person and app gets its own key with a fixed monthly budget, requests are refused once it is used, and you can set spending caps per key and for the whole company.
Can we keep Kong in front of Standard Compute?
Yes. Standard Compute is OpenAI-compatible at https://eu.stdcmpt.com/v1, so an existing Kong route can use it as its upstream while you move teams over.
How long are audit records kept?
Every admin change is recorded with before and after values, and the request record showing the model, the provider that served it and the region rule in force is kept for 12 months.
Set up your company
Create a company workspace, invite your team and set your rules from the dashboard. Security questionnaires and procurement questions go to contact@standardcompute.com.
Create a company workspaceor write to contact@standardcompute.com
Sources (checked 7 November 2026)
- Kong pricing (AI Management)konghq.com
- AI Proxy plugindeveloper.konghq.com
- AI Proxy Advanced plugindeveloper.konghq.com
- AI Rate Limiting Advanced plugindeveloper.konghq.com
- AI Proxy example: OpenAI chat routedeveloper.konghq.com
- Konnect SSOdeveloper.konghq.com
- Konnect audit logsdeveloper.konghq.com
- Konnect geosdeveloper.konghq.com
- AI Model entity (AI Gateway 2.0)developer.konghq.com