Gloo Gateway Review, Pricing & Features

Gloo Gateway is Solo.io's open-source, Envoy-based API gateway for REST, gRPC, GraphQL, and WebSocket traffic, with paid enterprise support.

Category
API Tools
Pricing
Freemium, from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 20, 2026
Founded
2017
Headquarters
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Web AppAPIOpen SourceSelf-Hosted

What Is Gloo Gateway?

Gloo Gateway is an API gateway built on top of the Envoy proxy, developed by Solo.io, a cloud-native infrastructure company founded in 2017 by CEO Idit Levine and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is designed to route, split, and transform traffic across multiple protocols, including REST, gRPC, GraphQL, and WebSocket.

The product is offered in two forms: a free, open-source core released under the Apache 2.0 license, and a paid enterprise tier that adds support and features aimed at regulated or large-scale production environments.

Key Features

Gloo Gateway handles traffic management tasks such as routing, traffic splitting, and request delegation, alongside security features including TLS and mTLS termination, JWT validation, and web application firewall (WAF) integration. Resiliency features include circuit breakers, automatic retries, and rate limiting.

It also includes a developer portal for self-service API credential management, analytics and API monetization tooling, and integration points for AI and agent infrastructure, letting it act as a gateway in front of both traditional services and AI-driven workloads.

Gloo Gateway Pricing

The open-source edition of Gloo Gateway is free to use indefinitely under the Apache 2.0 license, with no usage limits imposed by Solo.io itself.

Enterprise pricing, which adds 24x7 support, FIPS compliance, advanced transformation capabilities, and multicluster routing, is not published and is quoted directly by Solo.io's sales team based on deployment scale and support needs.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Free, open-source core with no vendor lock-in
  • Built on the battle-tested Envoy proxy
  • Supports multiple protocols in a single gateway
  • Backed by a well-funded company with enterprise support options
  • Used in production for 7+ years by Fortune 500 customers

Cons

  • Enterprise pricing is not publicly listed and requires a sales conversation
  • Effective use generally requires Kubernetes and Envoy expertise
  • Compliance features like FIPS and multicluster routing are enterprise-only
  • Steep learning curve for teams new to API gateway or service mesh concepts

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gloo Gateway free?

Yes, the core of Gloo Gateway is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license; an enterprise tier with added support and features is paid.

What company makes Gloo Gateway?

Gloo Gateway is made by Solo.io, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

What protocols does Gloo Gateway support?

It supports REST, gRPC, GraphQL, and WebSocket traffic.

Do I need Kubernetes to use Gloo Gateway?

Gloo Gateway is commonly deployed on Kubernetes, and most production usage assumes a Kubernetes environment.

What's included in the enterprise tier?

The enterprise tier adds 24x7 support, FIPS compliance, advanced transformations, and multicluster routing on top of the open-source core.

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