Solo.io agentgateway and kagent: open-source agent infrastructure
Overview
agentgateway is a single data plane for the traffic AI systems generate. It is listed as a hosted project of the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), alongside MCP and A2A, which gives buyers some assurance about project governance. Solo.io sells an enterprise edition and support.
kagent
kagent is an open-source framework for running agents on Kubernetes as custom resources. It is a CNCF Sandbox project under Apache 2.0, created at Solo.io, with A2A and MCP support and more than 100 contributors, according to the project site.
Interoperability
Native MCP with authentication, tool scoping and OpenAPI-to-MCP conversion; A2A federation.
Security and governance
JWT and OIDC, API keys, mTLS, external authorization, rate limiting, guardrails and prompt redaction, audit trails, OpenTelemetry.
Performance claims
Solo.io publishes benchmark comparisons against "interpreted alternatives": 30MB vs 9GB memory, 165k vs 4.6k queries per second, and 0.09ms vs 11ms latency. These are vendor claims; test with your own traffic.
Pricing
The open-source project is free. Enterprise pricing is not published.
Strengths
- Open source under Linux Foundation governance.
- One data plane for LLM, MCP, A2A and HTTP.
- Kubernetes-native agents through kagent.
Limitations
- Aimed at platform engineers; requires Kubernetes and gateway skills.
- No human collaboration interface.
- Enterprise support terms and prices require a quote.
How it fits with BAND
agentgateway secures and routes the calls; BAND coordinates the work those calls belong to. Platform teams can enforce MCP tool scoping and A2A policy at the gateway while agents and people collaborate in BAND.
Sources
Reviewed Sep 2026
Frequently asked questions
Is agentgateway open source?
Yes, under Apache 2.0, and it is a hosted project of the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation.
What is the difference between agentgateway and kagent?
agentgateway is a gateway for AI traffic. kagent is a framework for running agents on Kubernetes. Both came from Solo.io.
Compare with
Connect agentgateway agents with agents from other vendors