Airlock Microgateway vs LiteSpeed Ingress Controller

Airlock Microgateway is a Kubernetes-native Web Application and API Protection solution that also serves as an identity-aware proxy. It runs as a container in Kubernetes clusters and is configured through GitOps. The gateway supports Kubernetes Gateway API and is positioned as an upgrade from Ingress NGINX. It validates identities through OIDC, JWT, token exchange or mutual TLS, then applies role- and path-based access control. Protection features include deny rules, CSRF protection, OpenAPI specification enforcement and GraphQL validation against OWASP Top 10 threats. Its Envoy-based reverse proxy supports routing, TLS termination, client certificate authentication and caller IP forwarding. Integrations include Cilium and Istio, and the product is certified for Red Hat OpenShift. Prometheus and Grafana provide monitoring, while logs use ECS format. Deployment can be multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud, but remains self-hosted. Community Edition is free for small environments or local development, with enforced throughput and six-month license validity. The free evaluation license specifies 5 requests per second, at most two replicas per gateway and six-month validity. Premium Edition has no listed price and is intended for enterprise setups.

LiteSpeed Ingress Controller is the Kubernetes ingress component in LiteSpeed Web ADC, a software HTTP load balancer and application delivery controller. The solution can run on private dedicated hardware, hosted environments, or cloud infrastructure. The controller supports the Kubernetes Gateway API and installs through Helm, using native ingress without sidecars or Kubernetes modifications. It supports HTTP versions including HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. Built-in LiteSpeed Cache is intended to accelerate web applications, and its Web Application Firewall can use ModSecurity rules and templates. ZeroConf lets Kubernetes configuration changes take effect without restarting the load balancer. Realtime statistics and controller commands are available in the Web ADC WebAdmin Console. Web ADC works with all web servers, though LiteSpeed Web Server is preferred for the backend. The default LoadBalancer installation exposes the service to the internet and load-balances all Ingress definitions; the documentation recommends Kubernetes cert-manager to manage TLS secrets for HTTPS. Helm installation includes full 24-7 support. Listed Web ADC plans are billed monthly: Small is $65 a month for one worker, Medium $130 a month for two workers, Large $260 a month for four workers, and Ultimate $520 a month with configurable workers.