# Alternatives to Zuplo

Zuplo is a serverless, programmable API gateway with GitOps configuration, rate limiting, authentication, and a developer portal, deployed at the edge.

Zuplo ranks #7 of 8 in API gateways, with an Alt Score of 86. It is licensed under Proprietary — Zuplo gateway platform; Zudoku developer portal component is open source (MIT), freemium from $25/mo and available on the web. 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

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

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Zuplo is built for developer teams who want to put a full API management layer — auth, rate limiting, developer portal, monetization — in front of REST, GraphQL, or gRPC backends without standing up and operating gateway infrastructure themselves.
- **What you get**: A programmable, edge-deployed API gateway with built-in API key/JWT/OAuth2 authentication, rate limiting and other WAF-style security policies, an auto-generated developer portal (built on the open-source Zudoku framework), an AI/MCP gateway, and analytics/observability, all configured through TypeScript/JSON policies and deployed via Git.
- **How it works**: Developers define routes and policies in code, connect a GitHub (or BitBucket/GitLab/Azure DevOps) repo, and Zuplo deploys the gateway to 300+ edge data centers in under a minute on every push, with environment promotion built into the GitOps workflow; teams needing full infrastructure control can instead run the same gateway via Managed Dedicated cloud instances or a self-hosted Kubernetes Helm chart.

## Profile

- **License**: Proprietary — Zuplo gateway platform; Zudoku developer portal component is open source (MIT) (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Pricing model**: Freemium (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Starts at**: $25/mo (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Platforms**: Web
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-17)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Gravitee](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/gravitee.md) | 100 | Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 2 | [Kong](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/kong.md) | 100 | Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 3 | [Tyk](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/tyk.md) | 100 | MPL-2.0 | Web |
| 4 | [WSO2 API Manager](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/wso2.md) | 100 | Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 5 | [Apigee](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/apigee.md) | 89 | Proprietary — Google Cloud managed service | Web |
| 6 | [KrakenD](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/krakend.md) | 86 | Apache-2.0 | Linux, Web |
| 7 | [Traefik Hub](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/traefik-hub.md) | 86 | Proprietary | 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 | Zuplo | Gravitee | Kong | Tyk | WSO2 API Manager | Apigee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Freemium | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | Usage-based |
| Starts at | $25/mo | $2,500/month | $25/month | Free | Free | $20 per 1M API calls |
| License | Proprietary — Zuplo gateway platform; Zudoku developer portal component is open source (MIT) | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary — Google Cloud managed service |
| Platforms | Web | Web | Web | Web | Web | Web |
| Open source | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Managed / SaaS option | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 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 | Yes |
| Plugin / extension ecosystem | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kubernetes-native / ingress | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GraphQL support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| gRPC support | Partial | 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 Zuplo. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: Proprietary — Zuplo gateway platform; Zudoku developer portal component is open source (MIT) — <https://github.com/zuplo/zudoku> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: The core Zuplo API gateway/management platform is closed-source and only available via Zuplo's managed/self-hosted deployment offerings (no public repo on the zuplo GitHub org). The Developer Portal f
  - Quote: “Framework for building high quality, interactive API documentation.”
- **Pricing model**: Freemium — <https://zuplo.com/pricing.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Free tier (100K requests/mo) plus paid Builder ($25/mo) and custom Enterprise tiers across API Management, AI Gateway, and Developer Portals product lines.
  - Quote: “Start free. Scale when you're ready. No vendor lock-in. Zuplo offers three product lines — API Management, AI Gateway, and Developer Portals — each with a free or open-source tier and a custom Enterpr”
- **Starts at**: $25/mo — <https://zuplo.com/pricing.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Cheapest paid API Management tier; a $0/mo Free tier (100K requests/month) is also available.
  - Quote: “### Builder — $25/mo _(Popular)_”
- **Platforms**: Web — <https://zuplo.com/pricing.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Zuplo is managed entirely through a web-based portal (portal.zuplo.com), CLI, and GitOps workflows; no native desktop or mobile client exists.
  - Quote: “[Start Free](https://portal.zuplo.com/signup)”
- **Status**: active — <https://zuplo.com/roadmap.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Roadmap page timestamped generatedAt 2026-07-09; the companion Zudoku GitHub repo shows a push as recent as 2026-07-16, both consistent with the current date (2026-07-17).
  - Quote: “Public Roadmap · 2026. Track what Zuplo is building — from early beta to general availability.”
- **Open source**: No — <https://github.com/zuplo/zudoku> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: The Zuplo gateway/management platform itself is proprietary (no public source repo); only the companion Zudoku developer-portal framework is open source (MIT).
  - Quote: “Framework for building high quality, interactive API documentation.”
- **Self-hostable**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/self-hosted/overview.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Offered as a paid Enterprise add-on (per pricing page), so gated behind a paid tier but genuinely available.
  - Quote: “Zuplo Self-Hosted (also known as on-prem) is a deployment model where you run the Zuplo API Gateway on your own infrastructure — any cloud or private data center. Zuplo Self-Hosted runs exclusively on”
- **Managed / SaaS option**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/pricing.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Managed Edge is the default fully-managed SaaS deployment model.
  - Quote: “Managed Edge (default) runs across 300+ data centers worldwide and scales to handle any traffic volume.”
- **Rate limiting & throttling**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/waf-ddos.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Zuplo ships a dedicated Rate Limiting Policy (docs/policies/rate-limit-inbound) with custom rate-limit-logic support.
  - Quote: “Rate Limiting - Protect against abuse with built-in rate limiting policies”
- **Authentication (OAuth/JWT/API keys)**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/solutions/secure-and-govern.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Also confirmed by the dedicated API Keys docs page: 'Zuplo provides a fully managed API key authentication system.'
  - Quote: “Zuplo supports API key authentication, JWT/OAuth2 validation, mTLS, and custom”
- **Developer portal**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/dev-portal/introduction.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Auto-generated, built on the open-source Zudoku framework; includes API key management and built-in analytics for consumers.
  - Quote: “The Zuplo Developer Portal powers this documentation site and is available for all Zuplo users.”
- **Plugin / extension ecosystem**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/programmable-api/runtime-extensions.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Programmable TypeScript policies/handlers plus a library of logging/metrics plugins (Datadog, Splunk, New Relic, AWS CloudWatch, etc.) and Dev Portal plugins (e.g. @zudoku/plugin-graphql).
  - Quote: “Built-in and custom plugins and handlers can expose their own extensibility.”
- **Kubernetes-native / ingress**: Partial — <https://zuplo.com/docs/self-hosted/overview.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Zuplo's default and most common deployment is edge/serverless (not Kubernetes); Kubernetes-native operation (Helm chart, CRDs, ingress load balancer) is only available via the paid Self-Hosted deploym
  - Quote: “A conformant Kubernetes cluster — managed offerings such as EKS, AKS, and GKE, or your own distribution. Support for Services of type `LoadBalancer` to expose the ingress. ... the chart installs CRDs ”
- **GraphQL support**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/graphql-support.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Dedicated GraphQL-aware policies exist for caching, complexity limiting, introspection control, and analytics.
  - Quote: “Zuplo treats GraphQL as a first-class backend. Proxy your existing GraphQL server through the gateway, then layer on security, caching, analytics, and documentation using policies built for the GraphQ”
- **gRPC support**: Partial — <https://zuplo.com/learning-center/grpc-api-gateway-guide.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Unlike GraphQL, Zuplo has no dedicated gRPC-aware policies (analytics, caching, etc.) documented — support is limited to HTTP/2 proxying to gRPC backends, so marked partial.
  - Quote: “Zuplo is an edge-native API gateway that supports HTTP/2 and can proxy gRPC traffic across its network of over 300 global data centers. Zuplo's strength for gRPC architectures is in managing the REST-”
- **Analytics & monitoring**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/analytics/overview.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Also includes Logs and Traces (Observability tab); Enterprise add-ons extend retention and add OpenTelemetry/observability integrations.
  - Quote: “Zuplo Analytics is the dashboard inside the Zuplo portal that shows how traffic moves through your gateway: request volume, latency, errors, who's calling you, and (when relevant) AI gateway and MCP g”
- **Declarative / GitOps config**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/index.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Free tier explicitly lists 'GitHub GitOps integration'; Enterprise adds GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, Azure DevOps.
  - Quote: “GitOps & Environments — policy changes deploy via git, with environment promotion built in”
- **WAF / security policies**: Yes — <https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/waf-ddos.md> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Zuplo also integrates with third-party edge WAFs (Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS WAF, Fastly) for teams wanting dedicated WAF products, but ships its own built-in WAF-equivalent policies.
  - Quote: “Many common WAF functions can be implemented directly in Zuplo using policies, without the need for a separate WAF service: IP Restriction ... Geolocation Blocking ... Rate Limiting ... Custom Rules”

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