KnoxCall vs Gravitee
These two platforms sit on opposite sides of your workload. Gravitee governs the inbound edge — who gets into your APIs and event streams, with a genuine full IdP/IAM, a Kafka-native gateway, and a developer portal. KnoxCall governs the outbound edge: it injects your third-party bearer keys at the egress wire so they never enter the pod, rotates the underlying vendor key, and tokenizes sensitive data. Most teams that run one still need the other.
KnoxCall Advantages
- Third-party bearer key never enters your pod on the egress hot path — injected at the wire, with no value-GET path back out
- Custodial rotation mints / verifies / deletes the provider’s own child keys (Cloudflare, SendGrid, AWS IAM…) — rotates the underlying vendor key, not just a lease TTL
- Format-preserving tokenization for PAN / SSN / email + one-shot Ephemeral Proxy
- Encryption-as-a-Service: encrypt / decrypt / rewrap + JWT/RSA/ECDSA/Ed25519 signing with alg-confusion defence + BYOK
- AI Gateway: LLM egress proxy with capability keys, streaming PII redaction, prompt firewall + canary leak, per-agent budgets
- DPoP-bound short-lived tokens + RFC 8693 workload identity federation
- All-in-one managed SaaS on one bill — zero infrastructure, minutes to set up
Gravitee Advantages
- Full Identity & Access Management — a real IdP with OAuth2 / OpenID Connect / SAML, MFA and passwordless (Gravitee AM)
- Event-native gateway: expose and govern Kafka topics as first-class APIs, treated like a native broker by producers/consumers
- Self-service Developer Portal for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, Kafka, MCP and A2A discovery and subscriptions
- Deep, mature inbound API management: policy engine, quotas, productization, fine-grained authorization via OpenFGA
- Open-source core (OSS gateway + OSS Access Management) with self-hosted and air-gapped deployment options
Feature Comparison
Direction of Control
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
Third-party bearer key kept out of the workload (egress wire injection) Does the real Stripe / OpenAI / Twilio key ever land inside the running container? | ✓
Injected at egress — no key present, no value-GET path | ✗
Governs inbound access; does not manage your outbound credentials |
Inbound API access & identity (IdP / IAM) Authenticate and authorize who calls your APIs | ~
Keys, scopes, DPoP tokens — not a full IdP | ✓
Full IdP: OAuth2 / OIDC / SAML, MFA, passwordless |
Outbound credential rotation at the vendor Rotate the provider’s own key on a schedule | ✓
Custodial: mint / verify / delete provider child keys | ✗
Not in scope for an inbound gateway |
Event-native gateway (Kafka topics as governed APIs) Expose and secure Kafka streams like traditional APIs | ✗
HTTP proxy only; no Kafka protocol gateway | ✓
Native Kafka Gateway (a genuine strength) |
Outbound Credential Security
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
Readable by RCE / poisoned dependency in the process Can attacker code in the same process exfiltrate the outbound key? | ✓
No provider key present to read on the egress path | ✗
Your app still holds its own outbound keys |
Works for keys with no token-exchange endpoint (Stripe, OpenAI, Twilio) Static bearer tokens that cannot be federated away | ✓
Egress injection needs no vendor STS | ✗
Not what an ingress platform addresses |
Workload identity federation (OIDC token exchange, DPoP-bound) Swap a workload’s OIDC identity for a short-lived, sender-constrained token (RFC 8693) | ✓
DPoP-bound tokens via OIDC exchange | ~
Issues OAuth2 / OIDC tokens as an IdP; not framed as outbound workload egress |
Inbound Access & Identity
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
Full identity provider (OAuth2 / OIDC / SAML) Authenticate end users and applications as an IdP | ✗
Not an IdP; uses external SSO for its own console | ✓
Gravitee AM — a core strength (SAML IdP is Enterprise) |
MFA / passwordless / step-up authentication Strong auth for inbound users | ✗ | ✓
MFA + biometric / token passwordless |
Fine-grained authorization (relationship-based) Per-object / per-relationship authz decisions | ~
Roles, scopes & audience-typed keys; not ReBAC | ✓
Enterprise Auth add-on via OpenFGA |
Self-service developer portal & catalog Discover, subscribe to and consume APIs / events | ✗
Admin console, not a public dev portal | ✓
REST / GraphQL / gRPC / Kafka / MCP / A2A |
Data Protection & Crypto
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
Format-preserving tokenization (PAN / SSN / email) Shape-mimicking tokens so downstream systems stay untouched | ✓
Tokenization vaults (Pro+) | ✗
Not a tokenization / vault product |
Encryption-as-a-Service (encrypt / decrypt / rewrap) Crypto without exposing key material | ✓ | ✗ |
JWT + asymmetric signing (RSA / ECDSA / Ed25519) Sign & verify with algorithm-confusion defence | ✓
Alg-confusion defence built in (Pro+) | ~
Validates / mints JWTs as an IdP; not a general signing service |
BYOK via tenant master key Bring your own master key | ✓
Per-tenant master key (Enterprise) | ✗ |
AI / Agent Security
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
LLM egress proxy with provider key kept out of the workload Capability keys; the real model-provider key never enters the agent’s process | ✓
AI Gateway with capability keys | ~
AI Agent Management governs agent identity / access, not outbound key hiding |
Streaming PII redaction + prompt firewall + canary leak Hold-back FSM redaction and prompt-injection defence on the LLM path | ✓
FF3-1 redaction + firewall (Pro+) | ✗ |
MCP / A2A governance for agents Govern Model Context Protocol and agent-to-agent traffic | ~
Capability keys + per-agent budgets (recorded, not hard-enforced) | ✓
Agent Management + MCP resource server |
Operations & Setup
| Feature | KnoxCall | Gravitee |
|---|---|---|
Managed SaaS No infrastructure to deploy or manage | ✓ | ✓
SaaS available; self-hosted is common |
Setup Time Time from sign-up to production | Minutes | Days to weeks |
Open-source / self-hosted core Run it yourself, inspect the source | ✗
Managed SaaS; not open source | ✓
OSS gateway + OSS Access Management |
Built-in request analytics & geo Usage metrics and a live request map | ✓ | ✓
API analytics & monitoring |
In Depth
Gravitee and KnoxCall are frequently confused for competitors because both call themselves “API” platforms. In practice they guard opposite doors. Gravitee is an inbound platform: it decides who is allowed to call your APIs and event streams, authenticates them with a real identity provider, and hands them a governed developer portal. KnoxCall is an outbound platform: it decides what your own workloads are allowed to send, and it does so by taking the third-party credential off the machine entirely. If you draw the two on a diagram, Gravitee sits at the left edge of your system and KnoxCall sits at the right edge. Very little overlaps.
When to Choose KnoxCall
Choose KnoxCall when the risk you are managing is on the way out: Stripe secret keys, OPENAI_API_KEY, Twilio tokens and SendGrid keys sitting in pods and CI runners, waiting for one RCE or one poisoned dependency to read them. KnoxCall injects those at the egress wire so they never enter the workload on the hot path, rotates the underlying vendor key on a lease schedule, tokenizes PAN/SSN/email, and puts an LLM egress gateway with streaming PII redaction in front of your AI agents. It is a managed SaaS you can wire up in minutes, on one bill.
When to Choose Gravitee
If your problem is inbound, Gravitee is very likely the better tool, and we will not pretend otherwise. Gravitee ships a genuine full-featured identity and access management stack — Gravitee AM is an open-source IdP with OAuth2, OpenID Connect and SAML 2.0, MFA and passwordless flows — which KnoxCall simply does not have. Its event-native Kafka Gateway exposes Kafka topics as first-class, governed APIs that producers and consumers treat like a native broker; KnoxCall has no Kafka protocol gateway at all. Add a mature self-service developer portal spanning REST, GraphQL, gRPC, Kafka, MCP and A2A, fine-grained authorization via OpenFGA, deep enterprise API-management depth, and an open-source, self-hostable core, and you have a category KnoxCall does not compete in.
If you need to authenticate external developers, productize and monetize APIs, or govern Kafka streams for downstream consumers, choose Gravitee. Many teams run both: Gravitee on the inbound edge for identity and productization, KnoxCall on the outbound edge so provider keys never render into the workloads Gravitee is fronting.
The credential class an inbound gateway structurally cannot fix
An inbound API-management platform, however good, terminates traffic that is arriving. It has nothing to say about the Stripe key your service uses to charge a customer, or the OpenAI key your agent uses to call a model. Those are static bearer tokens with no token-exchange endpoint — the vendor never designed them to be federated away — so they get pasted into an env var or a secret and sit in the process. KnoxCall injects them at the egress wire instead, and its custodial rotation mints and deletes the provider’s own child keys, so the underlying vendor secret rotates rather than just a lease TTL. That is the loop this page opens, and it is orthogonal to everything Gravitee does well.
The honest residual
This is not zero-residual, and the scope is deliberately narrow. KnoxCall’s wire-injection guarantee applies to the egress hot path: the real provider key is never rendered into your workload and there is no value-GET path to fetch it back. But a short-lived, scoped, revocable KnoxCall token still lives in your pod and can route requests through the proxy until it is revoked. The difference is what that token is — scoped to specific routes, audited on every call, DPoP-bindable, and revocable on demand — versus a static vendor key that is valid for years. KnoxCall does not remove trust; it moves it, and adds a network hop, the same tradeoff you accept with any federation layer.
A few more honest limits, so nobody is surprised. KnoxCall is not open source and is not self-hostable the way Gravitee’s OSS core is. Its SDKs are the six that ship in the monorepo — they are not yet on pip or npm. Any migration or import path we offer is import-only; there is no two-way sync or write-back. Per-agent AI budgets are recorded, not hard-enforced. And on compliance we say aligned, not certified: SOC 2 Type II is in progress and a BAA is available. Where Gravitee wins — IdP/IAM, Kafka-native ingress, the portal — it wins cleanly.
Pricing Comparison
KnoxCall
- 1 Route
- 100 API calls/month
- 1 Secret · 1 Vault (1k tokens)
- 2 Crypto Keys (AES)
- 1 Inbound Webhook
- Basic Analytics · 7-day retention
- 2 Routes
- 10K API calls/month
- 5 Vaults (50K tokens)
- Ephemeral Proxy (100K ops/mo)
- Basic Analytics (no Alerts / FPE / crypto / PII-redaction)
- 25 Routes · 1M API calls/month
- Email Alerts
- 25 Vaults (1M tokens) · Format-Preserving Tokens
- Streaming PII Redaction (FF3-1 + hold-back FSM)
- Prompt Firewall + Canary Leak · 100K AI calls/mo
- OIDC workload federation · Advanced Analytics
- Unlimited Routes · Unlimited Team
- Unlimited API calls
- Unlimited Vaults / tokens / Crypto Keys
- BYOK via tenant master key
- Dedicated Fixed Outbound IP
- Priority Support
Gravitee
- OSS API Gateway + OSS Access Management
- Self-hosted · community support
- SAML IdP & some plugins are Enterprise-only
- You run the infrastructure · no SLA
- Unlimited users & APIs
- 1 production gateway
- Gold support
- 1 production gateway · 1 federated broker
- Developer portal
- Gold support
- 2–4+ production gateways
- Universe includes Identity & Access Management
- Enterprise Auth (OpenFGA) & Agent Management add-ons
- 24/7 support + technical account manager
Gravitee sells API Management and Event Management as separate node-based lines. Entry paid tiers are Planet (APIM, $2,500/mo) and Comet (Events, $1,250/mo); Galaxy, Universe, Meteor and Asteroid are custom-quoted, with IAM bundled into Universe. An open-source, self-hosted core is available at $0. Pricing per gravitee.io/pricing, verified July 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is KnoxCall a replacement for Gravitee?
No. Gravitee governs the inbound edge: who gets into your APIs and event streams, with a full identity provider, a Kafka-native gateway, and a developer portal. KnoxCall governs the outbound edge: it injects third-party bearer keys at the egress wire so they never enter the pod, rotates the underlying vendor key, and tokenizes sensitive data. The two guard opposite doors, and most teams that run one still need the other.
Can I run KnoxCall alongside Gravitee?
Yes, that is the intended pattern. Many teams run Gravitee on the inbound edge for identity and API productization, and KnoxCall on the outbound edge so provider keys never render into the workloads Gravitee is fronting. Adoption happens consumer by consumer, with no rip-and-replace, and any import path KnoxCall offers is import-only with no two-way sync or write-back.
When is Gravitee the better choice?
If your problem is inbound, Gravitee is very likely the better tool. It ships a genuine identity and access management stack (Gravitee AM, with OAuth2, OpenID Connect, SAML, MFA and passwordless), an event-native Kafka Gateway that exposes topics as governed APIs, a self-service developer portal covering REST, GraphQL, gRPC, Kafka, MCP and A2A, and fine-grained authorization via OpenFGA. It also has an open-source, self-hostable core, which KnoxCall does not.
How does pricing differ between KnoxCall and Gravitee?
KnoxCall is a managed SaaS with a free tier, Starter at $19/mo, Pro at $99/mo, and custom Enterprise pricing on one bill. Gravitee offers a $0 open-source, self-hosted core, while its paid node-based tiers start at Planet (APIM) at $2,500/mo and Comet (Events) at $1,250/mo, with Galaxy and Universe custom-quoted and IAM bundled into Universe. KnoxCall is managed SaaS only and is not self-hostable, while Gravitee can be deployed as SaaS or self-hosted.
Guard the inbound door with Gravitee. Take the outbound key off the machine with KnoxCall.
KnoxCall runs alongside your API-management platform, not instead of it. Wire-inject the third-party keys your services send outbound so they never render into a container again — consumer by consumer, no rip-and-replace.