Simrita Mishra 
AI is now at the centre of every IT budget conversation happening in CXO meetings. And if you’re a CTO right now, the playbook is clear. Cut costs, slow down hiring, and in some cases, make tough calls on team size. There’s no way around it. AI agents are getting good (Claude Opus 4.6 is a solid example), and expectations are shifting fast. Teams are being asked to do more with less and do it efficiently.
So where do you start?
You look for places where money is quietly leaking. And one of the biggest offenders in most DevOps and SRE stacks is the API gateway.
This is the layer that doesn’t always get questioned but should. Because once you scale, especially in the cloud, API gateway costs can get out of control quickly. We’ve seen teams spend millions annually, and in many cases, a big chunk of that goes to platforms like Kong Enterprise.
API Gateway Contract Getting Renewed? Time to Rethink
If your API gateway contract is up for renewal, this is the moment to take a step back.
Before signing another agreement, it’s worth asking:
- Are we paying more every year just because traffic is growing?
- Did that “great deal” in year one turn into a much bigger bill later?
- Any extra spend on security, analytics, and governance add-ons?
- Sticky Vendor lock-in?
And then comes the big questions we hear all the time from enterprise teams:
Q1: We’re using 10–15 plugins in Kong or AWS API Gateway. Can we replicate all of this in an open-source setup?”
Ans: Yes, you can. And you should.
Q2: Which is the best open-source alternative to our paid API gateway?
Ans: Envoy Gateway.
Q3: Will we get same level of reliability, speed, and feature plugins?
Ans: No not all. Better speed, reliability and feature plugins. (thanks to Claude Opus 4.6).
Companies such as Bloomberg, SAP are using it for production traffic management.
Let’s break down why it’s becoming a serious alternative fast, secure, and completely free from licensing costs.
Why OSS Envoy Gateway: Fast, Secure, and Zero Licensing Cost
Once you start questioning API gateway costs, the next step is obvious—what’s the alternative?
This is where OSS Envoy Gateway starts to stand out. It’s built for modern, cloud-native environments where performance, security, and scalability are non-negotiable but cost still matters. Instead of layering complexity and pricing on top, Envoy Gateway focuses on doing the fundamentals extremely well, while staying lightweight and open.
Here’s what makes it compelling:
- Kubernetes-native + Envoy-powered
Built for microservices and backed by a proven, high-performance data plane - Security and traffic control out of the box
mTLS, fine-grained policies, routing, and load balancing - Truly open and cost-efficient
No licensing fees, no per-request billing, and no vendor lock-in - LLMs such as Claud Opus 4.6 have made the innovation of plugins faster than ever. Development and testing of each plugins take just a few days instead of months.
The value here is clear, you get performance, security, and scalability without the typical cost overhead.
Wondering what would be the Total Cost of Ownership of Envoy Gateway?
The Cost Problem: Kong, MuleSoft, AWS API Gateway
On paper, API gateways such as Kong, MuleSoft, and AWS API Gateway look like solid enterprise choices. They offer rich features, managed services, and strong integrations.
But once you move beyond the surface, the cost structure tells a different story.
Following are the areas where enterprises bleed to pay a lot of money:
- High upfront licensing costs
- Attractive Year-1 pricing, followed by steep increases
- Moderate base pricing with aggressive upselling
- Expansion-driven cost growth
- Unexpected cost spikes through add-on
- Vendor lock-in increasing long-term spend
Let’s break down how these costs compare directly against Envoy Gateway in a realistic enterprise scenario.
Cost Comparison: Kong API gateway vs MuleSoft vs AWS API Gateway vs Envoy Gateway
In a typical enterprise deployment characterized by high API traffic, multi-region infrastructure, and production-grade requirements, the cost differences between traditional API gateways and Envoy Gateway become immediately apparent.
Let’s ground this with a realistic setup:
- Clusters: 50–100+ EKS clusters
- Nodes per cluster: 10–20
- Traffic: 10,000–25,000+ RPS
- Backend services: 300–800+ microservices
- Multi-region + multi-environment deployments
Estimated Annual Cost (Traditional Platforms)
At this scale, cost drivers become even more aggressive:
- API call volume explodes (especially for AWS)
- Licensing scales with clusters and environments
- Add-ons (security, analytics, governance) become mandatory
- Multi-region duplication multiplies cost
Envoy Gateway Cost Model (All Scales)
Envoy Gateway does not follow the same cost curve.
- No licensing fees
- No per-request billing
- No paid add-ons
The only cost involved is the infrastructure
Key Cost Difference
Key Insight
At enterprise scale, the difference is no longer just cost savings—it becomes budget-defining.
Traditional API gateways:
- Scale cost with usage
- Penalize growth
Envoy Gateway:
- Scales infrastructure only
- Keeps cost predictable
But even with such a strong cost advantage, enterprise decisions are never based on cost alone. The next question is critical:
Can Envoy Gateway match the feature set and enterprise capabilities of platforms like Kong, MuleSoft, and AWS API Gateway?
Let’s break that down next.
Feature Comparison: Kong API Gateway vs MuleSoft vs AWS API Gateway vs Envoy Gateway
To make an informed decision, cost alone isn’t enough, you also need to evaluate how these platforms compare across core API gateway capabilities
Enterprise Plugins in Envoy Gateway by IMESH
You can build plugins in Envoy Gateway using WASM or LUA scripts easily. If you want to use enterprise plugins from the Day-1, you can reach out to IMESH.
We only charge a one-time fee for the plugins. There is NO HIDDEN Charges and NO Vendor Lock-in. We also provide enterprise support for Envoy Gateway at far less price than you end up paying enterprise API Gateway.
Reach out to us for a detailed comparison between API Gateway solution. You can send us the list of plugins, and we can help you evaluate of Envoy Gateway will be a good fit. This is FREE, so send your query here today.
