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Higress

higress.io

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Spec score 8.7 #2 of 29 in API Gateway Software

What it is

Higress is an open-source API gateway for governing AI services and cloud-native traffic, built on Istio and Envoy. Its AI Gateway provides centralized access to model APIs and MCP servers, with unified routing, protocol conversion, load balancing, and fallback. Higress says it supports more than 100 mainstream large language models. It can convert HTTP to MCP and proxy native MCP services. Traffic controls include token-based quotas and rate limits, API key pool rotation, and consumer authentication. Caching can reuse inference results precisely or semantically to reduce token use and latency for similar or repeated questions. Listed security measures cover prompt attacks, sensitive content, data privacy, and output filtering. The wider API gateway combines traffic, microservice, and security gateway functions with service exposure and API lifecycle management. It supports HTTP, HTTP2, HTTPS, GRPC, GRPCS, TCP, and Dubbo, along with Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API. Custom Wasm plugins can be written in Go, Rust, or JavaScript, with sandbox isolation and hot updates. The self-hosted Community Edition is free; the site also lists a managed Alibaba Cloud plan billed by actual usage, starting at ¥0.

Spec sheet

What it does
Higress is an open-source, AI-native cloud API gateway built on Istio and Envoy.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Deployment
A Docker all-in-one deployment exposes the console on port 8001, HTTP gateway on 8080 and HTTPS gateway on 8443.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Security
Listed protections include prompt-attack detection, sensitive-content identification, data privacy protection, and output-content filtering.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Support
The community edition includes community support and documentation; the dedicated commercial edition lists ticket, DingTalk group, and offline support.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
AI gateway
It unifies access to domestic and international large-language-model providers and supports model load balancing, fallback, token controls, caching and AI observability.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
AI model integrations
The integration directory uses a unified OpenAI-compatible protocol to manage, route and protect multiple mainstream model services.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.ai
API and SDK
The public repository includes API definitions, Kubernetes and Gateway API resources, and links to a Wasm Plugin Golang SDK.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
API gateway features
The API Gateway combines traffic, microservice, and security gateway functions and provides service exposure, traffic control, and API lifecycle management.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Caching
It supports precise and semantic caching of inference results to reduce token use and latency for similar or repeated questions.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Capterra pricing status
Capterra lists pricing as contact vendor, with no free trial and no free version included in its directory record.Read 15 Oct 2026 · capterra.com
CNCF status
CNCF announced that Higress passed its TOC vote and joined the CNCF Sandbox on March 25, 2026.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cncf.io
Company facts
The opened project and CNCF pages do not state a separate Higress legal entity, headquarters, employee count, founding year or external funding total.Read 15 Oct 2026 · cncf.io
Documentation depth
Documentation covers quickstarts, Helm configuration, plugin usage, CRDs, service discovery, protocol conversion, operations and contributor workflows.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Dubbo conversion
An Http2Rpc custom resource maps HTTP paths and methods to Dubbo service methods and can use query parameters or the entire request body as method input.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Extensions
Custom Wasm plugins can be developed in Go, Rust, or JavaScript, and the product page describes sandbox isolation for memory safety and hot updates.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Governance
Higress is identified as a CNCF Sandbox project hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Independent analysis
Podo Stack characterizes Higress as an Envoy and Istio-based ingress controller that expanded into an AI gateway and MCP host.Read 15 Oct 2026 · podostack.com
Kubernetes ingress
It supports Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API resources and is compatible with many NGINX Ingress annotations.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Kubernetes installation
The documented Kubernetes installation uses Helm and supports local Kind clusters as well as standard clusters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Kubernetes integrations
The documentation describes Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API support and integrations with Nacos, ZooKeeper, Consul, Eureka, Dubbo, and Sentinel.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Latest release
GitHub lists v2.2.5 as the latest release, with 133 updates including 21 new features and 72 bug fixes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Licence
The main Higress project is licensed under Apache License 2.0, while bundled components can carry separate licences.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Limit: open-source operations
GatewayScore says the open-source edition has no SLA and leaves multi-AZ deployment, monitoring, alerting and other enterprise operations to the adopter.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gatewayscore.com
Limit: operational complexity
The same evaluation judged Higress better suited to Kubernetes platform teams than developers expecting a conventional plain go mod installation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · mrkeyoor.com
Limit: reliability defaults
GatewayScore reports that failover is disabled by default, retry behavior is shallow and retries apply only to non-streaming requests.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gatewayscore.com
Limit: source build
An independent 2026 evaluation reported that a clean source installation failed because the expected external/go-control-plane submodule path was missing.Read 15 Oct 2026 · mrkeyoor.com
MCP management
The gateway can proxy native MCP servers and convert HTTP services to MCP for centralized tool access.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
MCP support
It supports HTTP-to-MCP conversion and proxying for native MCP services.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Microservice discovery
Supported service registries include Nacos, ZooKeeper, Consul and Eureka, with integrations for Dubbo, Nacos and Sentinel.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Model integrations
Higress says it supports unified access and governance for more than 100 mainstream large language models.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Model routing
It supports unified model routing and protocol conversion, load balancing, and model fallback.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Observability
The AI statistics plugin records token counts, first-token latency, total request latency and logs across gateway, route, service and model dimensions.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Origin and owner
The project says it originated inside Alibaba and is now developed as a vendor-neutral CNCF project.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Plugin extensibility
Wasm plugins can be written in Go, Rust, JavaScript and other languages, with sandbox isolation and independent plugin upgrades.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Plugin marketplace
The marketplace lists plugins for AI proxying, semantic caching, token rate limits, quotas, data masking, prompt templates, security, statistics, RAG, intent routing and geolocation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Praise: open-source scope
GatewayScore describes Higress as Apache-2.0 software combining conventional API gateway functions with LLM routing, guardrails, logging and self-hosting.Read 15 Oct 2026 · gatewayscore.com
Rating on Capterra
0.0 out of 5 from 0 reviews.Read 15 Oct 2026 · capterra.com
Security controls
Official capabilities include WAF protection and key, HMAC, JWT, Basic and OIDC authentication or authorization strategies.Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Security limitation
The project security self-assessment says it is not an independent audit or certification and does not replace cluster, secrets, PKI, network or application security controls.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Security reporting
The security policy directs vulnerability reports to GitHub Private Security Advisories and states that supported major lines are 2.x and 1.x.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
Traffic management
Its AI gateway supports Token-based quotas and rate limiting, API key pool rotation, and consumer authentication.Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io

Plans and prices

Alibaba Cloud AI Gateway Serverless Standard Priced on request Starts at ¥0; usage-based billing Fully managed · automatic request-based scaling · LLM, Agent and MCP support Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.ai
Higress Community Free Free & Open Source, Community Support Self-hosted · self-managed stability and performance · community support Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.ai
Higress Community Edition Free self-hosted · community support and documentation · user handles stability and performance Read 8 Oct 2026 · higress.io
Alibaba Cloud AI Gateway Serverless Enterprise Priced on request Usage-based commercial service; price not shown 99.95% SLA · dedicated endpoints · custom domains · transport encryption Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.ai
Feitian Exclusive Edition Priced on request Negotiated on demand Elastic resources · negotiated SLA · commercial support · enterprise integrations Read 15 Oct 2026 · higress.ai

Every Higress plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Centralizes model API and MCP access
  • Supports routing, load balancing, and model fallback
  • Includes token quotas and rate limiting
  • Offers Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API support
  • Free self-hosted Community Edition

Limits

  • Community users handle stability and performance
  • Managed Standard pricing is billed by actual usage
  • Commercial support details differ from community support

Who it suits

Higress suits teams that need an API gateway for AI services, MCP, or cloud-native traffic. The free self-hosted edition includes community support and documentation, while users handle stability and performance.

Verdict

Higress combines AI gateway controls with broader API and microservice gateway functions. The free community option is self-hosted; the managed Standard plan is usage-billed, with its listed starting figure of ¥0.

Where Specifiction places it

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