#55th of 14 in Gateways
Higress
Envoy-based API gateway with LLM proxy plugins and MCP server hosting
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- Stars
- 9.5k
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Last commit
- Oct 2026
- Last release
- Oct 2026
Overview
Higress is a CNCF sandbox API gateway on Istio and Envoy, extended with Wasm plugins in Go, Rust or JS. Its AI plugins proxy mainstream LLM providers with token rate limiting, load balancing, caching and observability, and host remote MCP servers, including ones generated from OpenAPI specs. A Docker all-in-one image exposes the console on 8001 and the gateway on 8080/8443; Helm covers Kubernetes.
Who it is for: platform teams wanting one gateway for APIs, LLMs and MCP
Strengths
- Envoy-based with millisecond config reloads and no connection drops
- Hosts MCP servers with auth, rate limits and audit; OpenAPI-to-MCP converter
- Token rate limiting, multi-model load balancing and caching for LLM routes
- Also a Kubernetes ingress controller and Gateway API implementation
Weaknesses
- Images only on Alibaba Cloud registries; pulls can time out outside the mirrors
- Istio and Envoy underneath; heavier than single-binary LLM proxies
- AI features are Wasm plugins on a general API gateway
- Docs split across higress.ai and higress.cn
What it needs
- no GPU
- Docker
- Models: mainstream LLM providers, domestic and international, via the ai-proxy plugin
- port 8001
Also in Gateways
See all 14| Rank | Project | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | OmniRouteOpenAI-compatible gateway that routes requests across hundreds of AI providers | 86 out of 100 |
| 2 | LiteLLMOpenAI-format gateway and Python SDK for calling 100+ LLM providers | 84 out of 100 |
| 3 | freellmapiOpenAI-compatible router that fails over across free LLM provider tiers | 76 out of 100 |
| #4 | ContextForge MCP GatewayRegistry and proxy federating MCP, A2A, REST and gRPC behind one endpoint | 68 out of 100 |
| #6 | BifrostGo AI gateway with web UI, fallbacks, budgets and semantic caching | 59 out of 100 |