Kusk Gateway vs ngrok
Kusk Gateway
kusk.io
ngrok
ngrok.comSide by side
| Figure | Kusk Gateway | ngrok |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 4 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Ingress Controllers | 8.5 (#5) | 8.7 (#3) |
| Authentication | Documented authentication modes include JWT, OAuth2/OIDC, custom authorization and Cloudentity. | Edge authentication supports OAuth, OpenID Connect, SAML, JWT validation, mutual TLS and IP rules. |
| Documentation depth | Documentation includes getting-started tutorials, CLI reference, dashboard reference, Kubernetes resources, guides and a detailed OpenAPI extension reference. | The documentation includes quickstarts, conceptual guides, examples, Traffic Policy recipes and API reference pages. |
| Licence | Kusk is presented as 100% open source under the MIT License. | The hosted ngrok service is proprietary under its terms, while several official SDK, Terraform and operator repositories are MIT licensed. |
| Product | Kusk is a Kubernetes API gateway powered by Envoy with native OpenAPI support. | ngrok is an all-in-one cloud networking platform that secures, transforms, and routes traffic to services wherever they run. |
| What it does | Kusk is a Kubernetes API gateway powered by Envoy with native OpenAPI support for configuring cluster ingress. | ngrok is developer infrastructure that routes and secures traffic to applications, APIs and AI models. |
Plans
ngrok
- FreeFree
- Hobbyist$10 a month
- Pay-as-you-go$20 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Kusk Gateway
Kusk Gateway is a Kubernetes API gateway powered by Envoy, with native OpenAPI support. It uses OpenAPI definitions to configure a cluster's Ingress Controller, making it relevant to teams following an OpenAPI-first workflow for REST APIs. It can mock API responses for prototyping and automatically validate requests and responses. Teams can set request timeouts and CORS without coding, and adjust headers, CORS, limits, and quality of service globally or for individual paths.
An open-source dashboard supports API deployment and management, specification editing and validation, and API testing. The maker says an API can be published by adding an annotation to a service deployment, without additional configuration or DevOps support. Kusk can be installed on Mac, Linux, or Windows and is self-hosted. The project is 100% open source under the MIT License, with rate limiting and authentication policies listed. The maker presents it for teams building modern REST APIs on Kubernetes.
ngrok
ngrok is a cloud networking platform that secures, transforms, and routes traffic to services wherever they run. Its agent sends traffic through secure tunnels without requiring firewall changes. Traffic Policy uses CEL-based rules to route requests, authenticate them, apply rate limits or web application firewall controls, and reject them. Supported traffic includes HTTP, TLS, and TCP, including WebSockets, gRPC, SSH, Postgres, MQTT, and Minecraft. The Integrations Hub offers integrations and guides for areas such as SSO, databases, Kubernetes, OAuth, webhooks, and web servers. ngrok also verifies webhook signatures for more than 70 providers, including Stripe, GitHub, Twilio, Slack, and Shopify. The free plan includes $5 one-time usage, up to 3 online endpoints, up to 1GB data transfer, up to 20k HTTP/S requests, and one team member. Paid access starts at $10/mo. On Hobbyist, endpoints stop working when usage credit runs out, until the billing cycle ends and credit resets. ngrok lists region pinning across the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, India, Japan, and South America.