# Alternatives to Gravitee

Gravitee is an open-source API management platform with an event-native gateway supporting REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and async APIs, plus access management and a developer portal.

Gravitee ranks #1 of 8 in API gateways, with an Alt Score of 100. It is licensed under Apache-2.0, open source with paid hosting from $2,500/month and available on the web. 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/gravitee/
Category: API gateways

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Platform and API teams at mid-size to large enterprises who need to govern REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and event-streaming (Kafka) APIs across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure, including teams that want an open-source, self-hostable alternative to closed API gateways.
- **What you get**: An open-source (Apache-2.0) API gateway and management platform with a policy engine (80+ pre-built policies for rate limiting, OAuth/JWT/mTLS authentication, threat protection, and transformation), a developer portal for API discovery and self-serve subscriptions, analytics/observability dashboards, and a Kubernetes Operator plus Terraform provider for GitOps-style deployment. Enterprise/Cloud tiers add advanced policies, event/Kafka gateway features, and managed hosting.
- **How it works**: Teams self-host the Gravitee APIM gateway, console, and portal (e.g. via Docker or the Gravitee Kubernetes Operator) or run it as managed Gravitee Cloud SaaS. APIs are registered and shaped in a no-code Policy Studio, protected with reusable policy groups, exposed through the developer portal, and monitored through built-in analytics or external tools like Grafana/Kibana.

## Profile

- **License**: Apache-2.0 (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Starts at**: $2,500/month (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Platforms**: Web
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-17)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Kong](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/kong.md) | 100 | Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 2 | [Tyk](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/tyk.md) | 100 | MPL-2.0 | Web |
| 3 | [WSO2 API Manager](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/wso2.md) | 100 | Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 4 | [Apigee](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/apigee.md) | 89 | Proprietary — Google Cloud managed service | Web |
| 5 | [KrakenD](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/krakend.md) | 86 | Apache-2.0 | Linux, Web |
| 6 | [Traefik Hub](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/traefik-hub.md) | 86 | Proprietary | Web |
| 7 | [Zuplo](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zuplo.md) | 86 | Proprietary — Zuplo gateway platform; Zudoku developer portal component is open source (MIT) | Web |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| API gateways checklist | Gravitee | Kong | Tyk | WSO2 API Manager | Apigee | KrakenD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | Usage-based | OSS + paid hosting |
| Starts at | $2,500/month | $25/month | Free | Free | $20 per 1M API calls | Free |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary — Google Cloud managed service | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | Web | Web | Web | Web | Web | Linux, Web |
| Open source | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Managed / SaaS option | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Rate limiting & throttling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Authentication (OAuth/JWT/API keys) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Developer portal | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Plugin / extension ecosystem | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kubernetes-native / ingress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| GraphQL support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| gRPC support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Analytics & monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Declarative / GitOps config | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WAF / security policies | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for Gravitee. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: Apache-2.0 — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management/master/LICENSE.txt> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004”
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — <https://www.gravitee.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Gravitee APIM core is Apache-2.0 and free to self-host (per GitHub README quick-start); Gravitee also sells Gravitee Cloud managed SaaS and Enterprise Edition add-ons on flat monthly pricing.
  - Quote: “Flat Pricing. Get unlimited API calls & events for one monthly price.”
- **Starts at**: $2,500/month — <https://www.gravitee.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Cheapest listed paid/managed tier (Planet, API Management line). The self-hosted OSS core (Apache-2.0) is free; see 'Open source' cell.
  - Quote: “Planet Perfect for smaller enterprise use cases $2,500 /month”
- **Platforms**: Web — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management/master/README.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Console UI - The administrative interface for managing your APIs. Portal UI - A catalog of your APIs”
- **Status**: active — <https://api.github.com/repos/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: pushed_at": "2026-07-17T08:58:47Z"" — Repo pushed to same day as research (not archived); 428+ stargazers.
- **Open source**: Yes — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management/master/README.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Gravitee API Management (also called Gravitee APIM) is a flexible, lightweight, and blazing-fast Open Source solution”
- **Self-hostable**: Yes — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management/master/README.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “If you prefer to use Gravitee APIM on your own infrastructure with Docker, follow the steps below. 1) Clone the Gravitee APIM repository”
- **Managed / SaaS option**: Yes — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gravitee-io/gravitee-api-management/master/README.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Gravitee Cloud has you covered. Try our Saas offer with a free trial today!”
- **Rate limiting & throttling**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-management> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS, API Key, OIDC, rate limiting, OAS validation, threat protection”
- **Authentication (OAuth/JWT/API keys)**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-management> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS, API Key, OIDC, rate limiting, OAS validation, threat protection”
- **Developer portal**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-developer-portal> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Developer Portal | API, Event & AI Agent Discovery | Gravitee”
- **Plugin / extension ecosystem**: Yes — <https://documentation.gravitee.io/apim/create-and-configure-apis/apply-policies/policy-reference> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: 80+ policies listed (Kafka, AI, transformation, security, etc.), plus a separate Plugins doc section, forming an extensible policy/plugin ecosystem.
  - Quote: “The following policies can be applied to Gravitee APIs. Policies marked with an asterisk require an Enterprise Edition license.”
- **Kubernetes-native / ingress**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-gateway> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Deploy anywhere, govern centrally Run on AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem, or Kubernetes via the Gateway API.”
- **GraphQL support**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-gateway> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “API Gateway | One Gateway for REST, GraphQL & gRPC | Gravitee”
- **gRPC support**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-gateway> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “a high-performance runtime that enforces security, transformation, and traffic policies across REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, WebSocket, Server-sent Events, and Webhook traffic”
- **Analytics & monitoring**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-management> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Track every consumer across every protocol from a single observability layer. Unified analytics for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and event streams.”
- **Declarative / GitOps config**: Yes — <https://www.gravitee.io/platform/api-developer-portal> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “APIs, agents, and policies defined in Terraform or Kubernetes manifests. Gravitee Terraform Provider for declarative API and agent management Gravitee Kubernetes Operator (GKO) for native CRDs and Git”
- **WAF / security policies**: Yes — <https://documentation.gravitee.io/apim/create-and-configure-apis/apply-policies/policy-reference> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: No literal 'WAF' product name found on Gravitee's site/docs, but the policy reference lists JSON/XML/Regex Threat Protection, IP/GeoIP Filtering, RBAC, mTLS, SSL Enforcement, and request validation po
  - Quote: “JSON Threat Protection JSON Validation JWS Validator JWT Validator ... Rate Limit Regex Threat Protection Request Content Limit Request Validation ... SSL Enforcement ... XML Threat Protection XML Val”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/