Comparison

Emissary vs Zuplo

On the evidence we track, Zuplo leads this comparison with a composite score of 68/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Emissary full profile →Zuplo full profile →

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Emissary50

★Zuplo68

Attribute comparison across 2 tools
Attribute	Emissary	ZuploLeader
Vioscale score	50 / 100medium · 54%	68 / 100medium · 73%
Pricing
Free tierpricing.free_tier	✓	✓
Modelpricing.model	open_source	freemium
Price levelpricing.price_level	free	low
Transparentpricing.transparent	✓	✗
Integrations
Countintegrations.count	7	7
Security
Scorecardsecurity.scorecard	5.9	-
Soc2security.soc2	-	✓
Vulnerabilitiessecurity.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	-
Reliability
Sla pctreliability.sla_pct	-	99.99
Status pagereliability.status_page	-	✓
Adoption
Dependent reposadoption.dependent_repos	4	-
Github starsadoption.github_stars	4,519	-
Activity
Commits last 30dactivity.commits_last_30d	31	-
Release
Cadence daysrelease.cadence_days	18	-
Historyrelease.history	20 items	-
License
Spdxlicense.spdx	Apache-2.0	-
Language
Primarylanguage.primary	Python	-
Market
Availabilitymarket.availability	Available worldwide	-

Score

Vioscale score

Emissary50 / 100medium · 54%

Zuplo68 / 100medium · 73%

Pricing

Free tier

Emissary✓

Zuplo✓

Model

Emissaryopen_source

Zuplofreemium

Price level

Emissaryfree

Zuplolow

Transparent

Emissary✓

Zuplo✗

Integrations

Count

Emissary7

Zuplo7

Security

Scorecard

Emissary5.9

Zuplo–

Soc2

Emissary–

Zuplo✓

Vulnerabilities

EmissaryCount: 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

Zuplo–

Reliability

Sla pct

Emissary–

Zuplo99.99

Status page

Emissary–

Zuplo✓

Adoption

Dependent repos

Emissary4

Zuplo–

Github stars

Emissary4,519

Zuplo–

Activity

Commits last 30d

Emissary31

Zuplo–

Release

Cadence days

Emissary18

Zuplo–

History

Emissary20 items

Zuplo–

License

Spdx

EmissaryApache-2.0

Zuplo–

Language

Primary

EmissaryPython

Zuplo–

Market

Availability

EmissaryAvailable worldwide

Zuplo–

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for api gateways. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capability comparison for API Gateways
Capability	Emissary	Zuplo
Deployment
Hosting	Self-hosted only	Cloud 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	✓	✓

Deployment

Hosting

EmissarySelf-hosted only

ZuploCloud only

Kubernetes-native

Emissary✓

Zuplo-

Traffic

Rate limiting

Emissary✓

Zuplo✓

Request/response transformation

Emissary-

Zuplo✓

Security

OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT

Emissary-

Zuplo✓

Mutual TLS

Emissary✓

Zuplo✓

Protocols

GraphQL gateway

Emissary-

Zuplo✓

gRPC support

Emissary✓

Zuplo-

Delivery

Developer portal

Emissary-

Zuplo✓

Monetization

Emissary-

Zuplo✓

Ecosystem

Plugin ecosystem

Emissary-

ZuploLimited

Insight

Observability

Emissary✓

Zuplo✓

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Emissary

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.

Independently observed

Zuplo

Leader

Zuplo is a unified gateway for APIs and AI with a programmable policy engine for models and agents. Provides authentication, rate limiting, spend caps, and audit capabilities across API, LLM, and MCP calls.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Emissary

Open source

as of 2026-08-14verify ↗

Zuplo

Leader

from $25/moHybridFree tier

Free tier for ≤100K requests/month. Builder at $25/month with metered usage. Enterprise from $1,000/month with custom pricing available.

StarterFree
- 100K requests/month
- 1 day of analytics, live logs & traces
- Up to 2 developer seats
- GitOps with GitHub
- MCP Gateway
- +2 more
Builder$25/month + $100 per 100K requests over included amount
- Custom domains
- 10 custom environments
- 1000 API consumers & keys
- 7 days analytics retention
- 1 day log & trace history
- +5 more
EnterpriseContact sales
- Custom volume discounts available
- SSO + RBAC
- Audit logs
- 99.5% SLA baseline (up to 99.999%)
- Unlimited custom domains
- +7 more

as of 2026-08-03verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platform and deployment support comparison
Supports	Emissary	Zuplo
WebPlatforms	-	✓
CLIPlatforms	-	✓
Cloud / SaaSDeployment	✗	✓
Self-hostedDeployment	✓	✗

Platforms

Web

Emissary–

Zuplo✓

CLI

Emissary–

Zuplo✓

Deployment

Cloud / SaaS

Emissary✗

Zuplo✓

Self-hosted

Emissary✓

Zuplo✗

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Emissary

7 total

Consul
Linkerd
Istio
Knative
Grafana
Prometheus
Datadog

Independently observed

Zuplo

Leader

7 total

Claude Code
Cursor
GitHub Copilot
Codex
Windsurf
ChatGPT
Stripe

Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.