Gateway API is a set of Kubernetes resources for modeling service network traffic. It provides an expressive, extensible, and role-oriented service network model.
Key concepts
Gateway API offers four advantages over Ingress:
Role-oriented: Resource abstractions map to the organizational structure of teams that use Kubernetes, making ownership boundaries explicit.
Portable: Like Ingress, Gateway API supports multiple implementations.
Expressive: Structured configurations handle advanced traffic management—such as phased and weighted releases—without relying on annotations.
Extensible: Custom Resources (CRs) can be attached to resources at any layer of the Gateway API for fine-grained feature configuration.
Usage
Choose a Gateway API implementation from the open-source community, then use Gateway API to configure your service network. For a list of supported implementations, see Implementations.
Release notes
v1.3.0 — June 5, 2025
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| New features | Percentage-based traffic mirroring. For all changes, see the community release notes. |
| Breaking changes | None |
| Upgrade impact | This upgrade does not affect your services. |
v1.2.1 — December 26, 2024
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes requirement | 1.32 or later |
| New features | Backend timeouts in HTTPRoute; backend protocol configuration using BackendProtocol. For all changes, see the community release notes. |
| Breaking changes | The v1alpha2 versions of GRPCRoute and ReferenceGrant are deprecated. |
| Upgrade impact | Components that depend on the deprecated v1alpha2 API may stop working. Before upgrading, confirm that all components use the new API version. |
v1.1.0 — May 23, 2024
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes requirement | 1.30 or later |
| New features | GRPCRoute and Service Mesh support are now generally available (GA). For all changes, see the community release notes. |
| Breaking changes | The v1alpha2 API versions of Gateway, GatewayClass, and HTTPRoute are deprecated. |
| Upgrade impact | Components that depend on the deprecated v1alpha2 API may stop working. Before upgrading, confirm that all components use the new API version. |
v1.0.1 — February 1, 2024
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes requirement | 1.28 or later |
| New features | Gateway, GatewayClass, and HTTPRoute are now generally available (GA) and provide a v1 API. Configuration validation using Common Expression Language (CEL) is now supported. For all changes, see the community release notes. |
| Breaking changes | None |
| Upgrade impact | This upgrade does not affect your services. |
v0.6.0 — January 11, 2023
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes requirement | — |
| New features | Initial release. |
| Breaking changes | None |
| Upgrade impact | This upgrade does not affect your services. |