Gravitee review covering API gateway and event management features, Community vs Enterprise pricing, AI agent tooling, pros, cons and top alternatives.
Category
API Tools
Pricing
Freemium (open-source Community Edition plus tiered commercial plans), from Free (Community Edition); paid plans from $1,250/month
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 18, 2026
Founded
2015
Headquarters
Denver, Colorado, United States
Web AppAPIOpen SourceAIFreemiumSelf-Hosted
Overview
Gravitee began life in 2015 as an open-source API gateway built by a small team of developers in Lille, France who wanted a complete, freely available alternative to the expensive proprietary API management suites of the time.
A decade later the company has grown into a full platform spanning API management, event broker mediation, and, most recently, AI agent and MCP protocol governance, while keeping its original open-source Community Edition free and Apache 2.0 licensed.
Key Features
At the core of Gravitee is a protocol-agnostic API Gateway that can front REST, GraphQL, gRPC and event-streaming traffic from a single deployment, alongside an Access Management module for OAuth2 and OIDC identity flows.
Newer additions include an LLM proxy and MCP proxy for governing AI agent traffic with the same policies, rate limits and observability applied to conventional APIs, plus Cockpit, a central control plane for managing multiple gateways and environments.
Pricing
Gravitee prices its API Management line by number of production gateways rather than call volume, starting at Planet for $2,500 per month with unlimited users, APIs and calls on a single gateway, and scaling to custom-priced Galaxy and Universe tiers for larger deployments.
A parallel Event Management line for Kafka-style workloads starts at Comet for $1,250 per month, and the underlying Community Edition remains free and self-hostable for teams that only need the open-source gateway.
Key Features
Multi-protocol API Gateway — A single gateway handles REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket and Kafka-based event traffic instead of requiring separate tools per protocol.
Access Management — Built-in OAuth2 and OpenID Connect identity and access management for securing APIs and consumers.
API Designer and Developer Portal — Tools for designing, mocking and publishing APIs to a self-service developer portal for internal and external consumers.
Cockpit control plane — Centralized visibility and governance across multiple gateways, environments and teams.
Alert Engine — Real-time alerting on gateway health, traffic anomalies and policy violations.
Event broker mediation — Native support for Kafka and other event brokers so event-driven architectures get the same governance as REST APIs.
AI agent and MCP management — An LLM proxy, MCP proxy and agent catalog that extend API-style governance, rate limiting and observability to AI agents and Model Context Protocol servers.
Open-source Community Edition — A free, Apache 2.0 licensed self-hosted edition that includes the core gateway, portal and analytics.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Free, actively maintained open-source Community Edition with no artificial feature caps on core gateway functionality
Unlimited API calls and events per gateway rather than metered usage pricing, which makes costs predictable at scale
Native support for both REST/GraphQL APIs and Kafka-style event streaming in one platform
Early, dedicated tooling for governing AI agents and MCP servers rather than bolting AI support onto a legacy product
Cons
Commercial tiers above the entry Planet plan require a custom quote, making upfront cost comparison difficult
Gateway-based pricing can get expensive quickly for organizations that need many production gateways for isolation
Smaller ecosystem and third-party plugin marketplace compared to larger incumbents like Kong or Apigee
Self-hosting the Community Edition requires in-house DevOps expertise for scaling and upgrades
Pricing
Community Edition Free N/A (self-hosted, open source)
Planet $2,500/month Monthly
Galaxy Custom Custom
Universe Custom Custom
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gravitee free to use
Yes. The Gravitee Community Edition is free and open source under an Apache 2.0 license and can be self-hosted, though it lacks the enterprise support, advanced plugins and managed hosting of the paid tiers.
What does Gravitee cost
Paid API Management plans start at Planet for 2,500 US dollars per month for one production gateway with unlimited users and API calls, with the Galaxy and Universe tiers priced individually based on gateway count and enterprise requirements.
Does Gravitee support Kafka and event-driven architectures
Yes. Gravitee has a dedicated Event Management product line, starting at the Comet plan, that mediates Kafka and other event brokers with the same governance model used for REST APIs.
Can Gravitee manage AI agents and MCP servers
Yes. Gravitee added an LLM proxy, an MCP proxy and an agent catalog so teams can apply rate limiting, security and observability policies to AI agent and Model Context Protocol traffic.
Where is Gravitee headquartered
Gravitee is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with additional engineering and commercial offices in Lille, France and London, United Kingdom.
Who are Gravitee's main competitors
Gravitee competes most directly with Kong, Google Apigee, Salesforce MuleSoft, WSO2 and Tyk in the API management space.