# Emissary vs Envoy Gateway

| Attribute | Emissary | Envoy Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 51.3 (54% (medium)) | 52.4 (53% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 56 | 86 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 4 | 0 |
| adoption.github_stars | 4,521 | 3,078 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"An open-source, CNCF incubation project providing a Kubernetes-native API gateway with Layer 7 load balancing and ingress capabilities for microservices, built on Envoy Proxy. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","question":"What is Emissary?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Emissary is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","question":"Is Emissary free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Emissary can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","question":"Can Emissary be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 7 integrations for Emissary, including Consul, Linkerd, Istio, Knative, Grafana, Prometheus and Datadog. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","question":"What does Emissary integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Emissary is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary","question":"Is Emissary open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"Open-source gateway providing traffic management, security controls, and observability for Kubernetes applications following the Gateway API specification. Can be deployed either standalone or as part of a Kubernetes cluster. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://gateway.envoyproxy.io","question":"What is Envoy Gateway?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Envoy Gateway is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://gateway.envoyproxy.io","question":"Is Envoy Gateway free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Envoy Gateway supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://gateway.envoyproxy.io","question":"What platforms does Envoy Gateway support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Envoy Gateway can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://gateway.envoyproxy.io","question":"Can Envoy Gateway be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Envoy Gateway is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway","question":"Is Envoy Gateway open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A gateway built on Envoy Proxy that provides Layer 7 load balancing, ingress traffic management with support for multiple protocols including gRPC and HTTP/2, and Kubernetes-native configuration through declarative routing policies. | Provides a gateway for deploying Envoy Proxy in various environments—either standalone or on Kubernetes clusters—while extending Kubernetes Gateway API functionality. |
| features.capabilities | `{"mtls":true,"hosting":"self","k8s_native":true,"grpc_support":true,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true}` | `{"mtls":true,"hosting":"self","k8s_native":true,"oauth_oidc":true,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true}` |
| integrations.count | 7 | 4 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Consul"},{"name":"Linkerd"},{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Knative"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Datadog"}]` | `[{"name":"KEDA","native":true,"category":"autoscaling","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"k0rdent","native":true,"category":"infrastructure","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"OpenAI","native":true,"category":"ai","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"OIDC","native":true,"category":"authentication","direction":"outbound"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | - | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","retrievedAt":"2026-10-13T13:52:57.215Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://gateway.envoyproxy.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-16T21:35:24.255Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | 18 | 8 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.1.0","date":"2026-05-19T21:35:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.1.0-rc.0","date":"2026-05-01T19:56:39Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v4.1.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.0.1","date":"2026-03-26T22:54:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v4.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.0.1-rc.0","date":"2026-04-30T20:43:30Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v4.0.1-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.0.0-rc.2","date":"2026-03-06T16:28:04Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v4.0.0-rc.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v4.0.0-rc.1","date":"2025-12-02T19:04:29Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v4.0.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.10.0","date":"2025-07-29T17:20:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.9.1","date":"2023-11-20T16:00:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.9.1","date":"2023-11-20T15:59:12Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.9.0","date":"2023-11-13T12:42:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.9.0","date":"2023-11-13T12:40:29Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.8.2","date":"2023-10-11T14:11:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.8.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.8.2","date":"2023-10-11T14:09:30Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.8.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.8.1","date":"2023-09-18T14:54:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.8.1","date":"2023-09-18T14:53:18Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.8.0","date":"2023-08-29T12:30:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.8.0","date":"2023-08-29T12:28:24Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.7.2","date":"2023-07-25T17:22:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/chart/v8.7.2","date":"2023-07-25T17:20:17Z","type":"stable","version":"chart/v8.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/emissary-ingress/emissary/releases/tag/v3.7.1","date":"2023-07-13T17:36:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.1"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.9.2","date":"2026-09-28T17:14:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.5","date":"2026-09-28T17:28:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.9.1","date":"2026-08-28T11:34:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.4","date":"2026-08-28T11:03:57Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.9.0","date":"2026-08-15T12:31:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.9.0-rc.1","date":"2026-08-09T01:54:41Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.9.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.3","date":"2026-07-22T18:59:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.7.5","date":"2026-07-08T15:36:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.2","date":"2026-07-01T07:14:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.1","date":"2026-06-05T07:32:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.7.4","date":"2026-06-05T07:55:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.0","date":"2026-05-13T15:45:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.7.3","date":"2026-05-09T23:13:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.8.0-rc.1","date":"2026-05-01T05:58:00Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.8.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.6.7","date":"2026-04-27T20:16:54Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.7.2","date":"2026-04-17T01:33:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.6.6","date":"2026-04-16T14:08:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.6.5","date":"2026-03-13T02:12:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.7.1","date":"2026-03-12T17:15:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/envoyproxy/gateway/releases/tag/v1.6.4","date":"2026-02-11T18:48:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.4"}]` |
| security.scorecard | 5.5 | 7.9 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Femissary-ingress%2Femissary%2Fv3&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fenvoyproxy%2Fgateway%2Fexamples%2Fdynamic-module-test&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (API Gateways)

| Capability | Emissary | Envoy Gateway |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Self-hosted only | Self-hosted only |
| Kubernetes-native | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Traffic** |  |  |
| Rate limiting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Request/response transformation | - | - |
| **Security** |  |  |
| OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT | - | ✓ |
| Mutual TLS | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Protocols** |  |  |
| GraphQL gateway | - | - |
| gRPC support | ✓ | - |
| **Delivery** |  |  |
| Developer portal | - | - |
| Monetization | - | - |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| Plugin ecosystem | - | - |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Observability | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:19:39.933Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*