Ingress handles basic HTTP routing, but it relies on annotations for anything beyond that — canary releases and weighted routing. Gateway API replaces this annotation-based workaround model with a structured, role-aware API that handles advanced traffic policies natively.
Why Gateway API
Gateway API is built around four design goals:
Role-oriented: Gateway API keeps resource abstractions consistent with organizational roles that use and configure Kubernetes.
Portable: Like Ingress, Gateway API supports multiple implementations. Pick the one that fits your cluster setup.
Expressive: Advanced traffic policies such as canary release and weighted release are first-class features, not annotation workarounds.
Extensible: Custom resources can attach at any layer of the API, enabling fine-grained customization without breaking the core model.
Usage notes
Choose an implementation for Gateway API from the open source community and then use Gateway API to configure the Service network. For more information, see Implementations.
Release notes
June 2025
| Version | Release date | Description | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| v1.3.0 | 2025-06-05 | Supports ACS clusters running Kubernetes 1.32 and later only. Adds traffic mirroring based on a specified percentage. For full details, see the v1.3.0 changelog. | No impact on workloads. |