If you are evaluating API gateways in 2026, Kong is almost certainly on your shortlist. It deserves to be. Kong is a mature, battle-tested platform with a massive plugin ecosystem and years of production deployments. So why did we build STOA as a Kong alternative? Not because Kong is bad — but because the problem has changed.

For a broader comparison of open-source gateways, see our Open Source API Gateway Guide. For a comprehensive decision framework when migrating from any legacy platform, consult the API Gateway Migration Guide 2026.

The open-source API gateway landscape in 2026 includes Kong, Envoy, APISIX, Tyk, Gravitee, and STOA. This guide compares their architectures, MCP support, multi-tenancy, and licensing — with a focus on AI-readiness and European sovereignty.

The open source API gateway landscape in 2026 looks very different from what it was just two years ago. The rise of AI agents, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and stricter European regulations have reshaped what organizations expect from their API infrastructure. This article provides an honest comparison of the leading open-source gateways and where each one excels.

Migrating from Software AG webMethods API Gateway™ to an open-source alternative is achievable in 4-6 months using a phased, zero-downtime approach. This guide covers what makes webMethods migrations distinct — the Integration Server (IS) dependency, the Designer-based policy model, the IBM licensing entanglement — and provides a concrete roadmap for platform teams ready to act.

Let us say what many enterprise architects are thinking but few vendors will admit: the ESB is dead. The enterprise service bus — that monolithic integration middleware that defined the SOA era — has been in decline for a decade. What killed it was not a single technology but a series of architectural shifts: microservices, API gateways, event-driven architectures, and now the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Each shift made the ESB less relevant. MCP may be the final blow.

STOA Platform is an open-source, AI-native API gateway built for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) era. It bridges legacy APIs and AI agents with unified governance, European sovereignty, and zero vendor lock-in — all under Apache 2.0.

We're excited to announce STOA — an API Gateway built for the AI era.

As AI agents move from demos to production, enterprises face a critical question: how do you give an LLM secure, governed access to your internal tools and data? The answer is an MCP gateway — a new category of infrastructure that sits between AI agents and the services they consume, enforcing security, observability, and policy at every interaction.