# Emissary vs Gloo Gateway

| Attribute | Emissary | Gloo Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 51.3 (54% (medium)) | 48.3 (32% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 56 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 4 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 4,521 | - |
| 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":"Gloo Gateway functions as a centralized controller for API traffic in microservices architectures, handling authentication, observability, routing, and security governance across Kubernetes-based systems. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-gateway/","question":"What is Gloo Gateway?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Gloo Gateway does not publish its prices. Pricing is quoted on request, across 2 plans (Open Source and Solo Enterprise), so the figure depends on your seat count and requirements. We record this as a pricing-transparency signal rather than guessing a number. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.solo.io/pricing","question":"How much does Gloo Gateway cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Gloo Gateway supports Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-gateway/","question":"What platforms does Gloo Gateway support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Gloo Gateway can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-gateway/","question":"Can Gloo Gateway be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 5 integrations for Gloo Gateway, including MCP, Istio, Kubernetes Gateway API, Backstage and LLMs. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-gateway/","question":"What does Gloo Gateway integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 for Gloo Gateway. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Gloo Gateway not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://trust.solo.io","question":"What security certifications does Gloo Gateway have?","confidence":0.7}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":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. | A cloud-native API gateway built on Envoy that enables organizations to route, transform, and secure API traffic across multiple protocols. It provides enterprise security controls, developer portals for API discovery, and monetization capabilities for managing APIs as revenue-generating assets. |
| 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,"grpc_support":true,"monetization":true,"observability":true,"graphql_gateway":true,"developer_portal":true,"plugin_ecosystem":"limited","request_transformation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 7 | 9 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Consul"},{"name":"Linkerd"},{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Knative"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Datadog"}]` | `[{"name":"MCP","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Istio","native":true,"category":"service mesh","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Kubernetes Gateway API","native":true,"direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Backstage","native":false,"category":"devops"},{"name":"LLMs","native":true,"category":"ai","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Kubernetes","native":true,"category":"infrastructure","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"AWS Lambda","category":"serverless","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"AWS EKS","category":"infrastructure","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"AWS API Gateway","category":"api-gateway","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"OpenAPI","category":"documentation","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"OAuth 2.0","native":true,"category":"auth"},{"name":"OIDC","native":true,"category":"auth"},{"name":"JWT","native":true,"category":"auth"}]` |
| language.primary | Python | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | - | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://emissary-ingress.dev/","retrievedAt":"2026-10-13T13:52:57.215Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","summary":"Free, perpetual license","features":["Request routing by path, header, method, query parameter, host","Kubernetes Gateway API support","Traffic splitting and transformation","Multi-protocol support: REST, gRPC, GraphQL, WebSocket","Active community with regular releases"],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Solo Enterprise","summary":"Contact sales for pricing","features":["24x7 Support SLA with guaranteed response times","N-3 Long Term Support with security patches and bug fixes","FIPS Compliant Images","Private Slack Channel with white-glove support"],"contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open source forever. Enterprise support available.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.solo.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T17:04:52.281Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | quote |
| pricing.price_level | free | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | yes | no |
| release.cadence_days | 18 | - |
| 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"}]` | - |
| security.certifications | - | `[{"name":"FedRAMP","status":"in_progress"}]` |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.fedramp | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 5.5 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.trust_center | - | https://www.solo.io/blog/compliance-zero-trust-istio-ambient-mesh |
| 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}` | - |

## Capabilities (API Gateways)

| Capability | Emissary | Gloo 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 | - | Limited |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Observability | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:19:42.356Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*