Kafka Proxy Comparison: Which One Is Right for Your Team?
Most Kafka proxy solutions solve one piece of the puzzle. Here's how the major options compare across the capabilities that matter for platform teams managing Kafka at scale.
There are six major Kafka proxy options worth evaluating in 2026, ranging from routing-only proxies and API gateway extensions to open-source projects and purpose-built solutions. Here's a quick overview of each before we get into the detailed comparison.
Conduktor Gateway
Purpose-built Kafka proxy for platform teams. Layered multi-tenancy, DR readiness with chaos testing, composable best practice enforcement, and a growth path into data security, quality, and partner sharing.
Confluent Gateway
Routing and migration proxy included with Confluent Private Cloud, with a Cloud variant. Route-based cluster switching (restart required) and credential swapping; gateway-side encryption and schema enforcement are Early Access as of 1.3.0. No virtual clusters.
Kroxylicious
Open-source Kafka proxy framework backed by Red Hat, releasing steadily (0.24.0, September 2026). Community-supported; Red Hat's packaged version is a Technology Preview without production SLA.
Gravitee Kafka Gateway
API management platform with a native Kafka gateway. Virtual topics, ACL and quota policies, auth mediation, JSON-field encryption, manual failover, protocol mediation. Priced per production gateway from $1,250/month.
Aklivity Zilla
Primarily a protocol translator (HTTP/MQTT/gRPC to Kafka). Zilla Plus adds virtual clusters with ACLs and quotas for Kafka proxy use cases. Seed-stage startup.
Kong Event Gateway
API management platform with a native Kafka proxy, GA. Virtual clusters with ACLs, topic virtualization, message and field-level encryption, schema validation. Control plane is Kong Konnect (SaaS) only; no failover.
New to Kafka proxies? Read our guide on what a Kafka proxy is and why you need one.
The table below compares each Kafka proxy across the capabilities that come up most in platform team evaluations: multi-tenancy, disaster recovery, policy enforcement, data security, and operational tooling.
| Capability | Conduktor | Confluent GW | Kroxylicious | Gravitee | Zilla Plus | Kong Event GW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-tenancy | ✓ Layered isolation | Network-level only | Prefix naming | Topic aliasing | ACL-based | ACL-based |
| DR readiness | ✓ API-driven + chaos testing | Route config change + restart | Per-instance config change | Manual endpoint switch, all plans | DNS-based | — |
| Best practice enforcement | ✓ Composable interceptors | Auth/routing policies | Custom filters | Rate limiting, governance rules | Rate limiting, quotas | ACLs, auth mediation |
| Schema Registry governance | ✓ Auth, access control, audit | Not in current release | — | Validation only | Validation only | Validation only |
| Data security | ✓ Field-level + masking + tokenization | CSFLE client-side; gateway encryption Early Access | Record-level only | Payload or JSON-field (AES-GCM) | Field-level + masking | Message + field-level, static keys |
| Data quality | ✓ Schema + business rules at wire | Broker-level + Stream Governance (client-side) | JSON, Avro, Protobuf validation | Governance rules | Schema validation | Schema validation |
| External data sharing | ✓ Partner zones with isolation | — | — | Connectivity via mediation | Connectivity via translation | Connectivity via mediation |
| Operational tooling | ✓ Terraform (GA), CLI, runtime API | YAML + CFK; changes on restart | YAML, per-instance hot reload | UI, API, Terraform (4.8+) | YAML (Data Platform early access) | Konnect UI, Terraform, API |
| Self-managed deployment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (AWS) | Requires Konnect SaaS |
| Any Kafka vendor | ✓ | Confluent + Apache Kafka only | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Enterprise readiness | ✓ Years of deployments | 1.3.0; 1.0 shipped 2025 | 0.24.0; community support | GA | Seed-stage | GA |
| License | Commercial, per cluster | Confluent Private Cloud license | Apache 2.0 (+eng cost) | From $1,250/mo per gateway | ~$15k/yr | Konnect (custom) |
The right choice depends on what you already run and how complex your Kafka governance needs are. Here's a quick decision guide.
Use Conduktor Gateway if...
You have multiple teams sharing Kafka and need layered isolation, DR readiness, best practice enforcement, and a growth path into data security and quality. The go-to for platform teams managing Kafka at scale.
Use Confluent Gateway if...
You're a Confluent Private Cloud shop whose proxy needs are migration to Confluent Cloud, blue-green upgrades, and cluster switching, and you can wait for its governance features to leave Early Access.
Use Kroxylicious if...
You have a strong platform engineering team, simple requirements, and genuinely want to own the codebase. The open-source version is free but unsupported. Be prepared to build and maintain everything yourself.
Use Gravitee if...
You already run Gravitee for REST APIs and want to add Kafka governance under the same platform. Good if the unified developer portal is a primary requirement. Kafka depth is maturing but still shallower.
Use Aklivity Zilla if...
Your primary need is protocol translation for non-Kafka clients (MQTT, HTTP, gRPC). Zilla Plus adds some Kafka proxy capabilities, but limited enterprise adoption and tooling.
Use Kong Event Gateway if...
You already run Kong for REST APIs, want consolidation, and the SaaS control plane requirement isn't a concern. Kafka proxy depth is limited compared to a purpose-built solution.
Every proxy on this list can route traffic. Conduktor is the only one built to handle the full lifecycle of Kafka proxy needs, from day-one operations through governance and data protection. Here's where the approach diverges:
- Multi-tenancy that actually isolates. Other proxies offer naming conventions or basic ACLs. Conduktor layers virtual clusters, ACLs, and traffic control policies together. The difference shows up when your tenth team onboards and one of them starts producing 10x the expected volume.
- DR you can prove works. Switching clusters is the easy part. Conduktor adds chaos testing so you can validate that your applications will survive a failover before an actual outage forces you to find out.
- Composable best practice enforcement. Individual policies like rate limiting are useful. Conduktor's interceptors stack per virtual cluster, so you can enforce different rules for different teams on the same infrastructure without custom development.
- Schema registry governance. Every other proxy on this list either ignores the schema registry or uses it for validation. Conduktor puts a governance layer in front of it: modern authentication, per-subject access control, and audit logging on every operation.
- Wire-level data security. Client-side enforcement means any team that skips the library skips the rules. Conduktor enforces encryption, tokenization, and signing at the proxy, covering every client regardless of language, framework, or who deployed it.
- External data sharing with isolation. Exposing Kafka data to partners through protocol mediation is one thing. Conduktor adds dedicated partner zones with isolation and traffic control so an external consumer can't impact your internal infrastructure.
Conduktor Gateway: built for platform teams, not just routing.
Layered multi-tenancy, DR readiness, best practice enforcement, and a growth path into data security and quality. Works with any Kafka provider.
Conduktor Gateway vs Confluent Gateway
Confluent Gateway is a routing proxy for cluster migration and DR, switched by editing a route and restarting the gateway. Conduktor Gateway adds layered multi-tenancy, chaos testing, composable policy enforcement, and data security and quality on the wire. Confluent's production encryption (CSFLE) is client-side; its gateway-side encryption is Early Access as of 1.3.0. Full comparison →
Conduktor vs Kong Event Gateway and Gravitee Kafka Gateway
Kong and Gravitee are API management platforms with native Kafka gateways. Both offer virtual clusters or topics, encryption, and auth mediation but not layered isolation, data quality rules, or Schema Registry governance. Kong also requires a SaaS control plane and has no failover. See Gateway vs Kong → and Gateway vs Gravitee →.
Conduktor vs Kroxylicious
Kroxylicious is an open-source Kafka proxy framework backed by Red Hat. It's free and actively released, but community-supported, and Red Hat's packaged version is a Technology Preview. Your team owns the engineering: custom filters, per-instance YAML config, and every upgrade. Most organizations exceed the cost of a commercial product within the first year. Full comparison →
Conduktor vs Aklivity Zilla
Zilla is primarily a protocol translator for non-Kafka clients. Zilla Plus adds some Kafka proxy features (virtual clusters, ACLs). If your primary need is protocol translation, Zilla is purpose-built for that. For Kafka-native proxy governance, Conduktor provides significantly more depth.
Does Conduktor Gateway work with any Kafka provider?
Yes. Confluent, MSK, Redpanda, Aiven, open-source Apache Kafka. Same governance layer across all of them.
What about building our own with haproxy and an encryption library?
It works up to a layer: reaching brokers and flipping traffic is a load balancer's job. Encryption, masking, tenancy, and data quality need a proxy that reads the Kafka protocol. Conduktor vs building your own →