head to head · open source
grpc-gateway vs Apache APISIX
grpc-gateway has 20,001 GitHub stars, 2,409 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache APISIX has 17,135 stars, 2,946 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grpc-gateway leads on adoption by 17% (20,001 vs 17,135 stars). grpc-gateway is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; Apache APISIX is written in Lua under Apache-2.0. grpc-gateway has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Apache APISIX 17%. Apache APISIX was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| grpc-gateway | Apache APISIX | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 17K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick grpc-gateway if
- You weight community size — 20K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Apache APISIX if
- You want the Apache APISIX feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and Apache APISIX fits your workflow better
About grpc-gateway
gRPC Gateway is a plugin for protoc , the Google protocol buffers compiler. It reads protobuf service definitions and generates a reverse proxy server that translates a RESTful HTTP API into gRPC. The generated server follows the google.api.http annotations attached to those service definitions, so a single set of protobuf services can be exposed in both gRPC and RESTful style at the same time. It lives in the gRPC ecosystem, is written in Go, and is distributed under the BSD 3 Clause license.
read the full grpc-gateway overview →
About Apache APISIX
Apache APISIX is a dynamic, real time, high performance API gateway and AI gateway built on NGINX and etcd. It provides rich traffic management features, such as load balancing, dynamic upstream, canary release, circuit breaking, authentication, and observability. The project lives in the Lua and LuaJIT ecosystem, and it uses the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full Apache APISIX overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is grpc-gateway or Apache APISIX more popular?
grpc-gateway has 20,001 GitHub stars and Apache APISIX has 17,135. grpc-gateway has the larger community by that measure.
Are grpc-gateway and Apache APISIX free?
Both are open source. grpc-gateway is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Apache APISIX under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between grpc-gateway and Apache APISIX?
grpc-gateway is written in Go and Apache APISIX in Lua. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, grpc-gateway or Apache APISIX?
Choose grpc-gateway if you want the larger community (20,001 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Apache APISIX if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.