Higress Pricing

open sourceopen source · Apache-2.0last verified September 6, 2026official site ↗

At a glance

100% free and open source under Apache-2.0 ($0 self-host). Higress by Alibaba is an Envoy/Istio-based cloud-native API and AI gateway unifying Ingress, microservices, and LLM routing.

Self-hosting cost

Higress is open source under the Apache-2.0 license. Self-hosting does not add a software license fee, but you still pay for infrastructure, operations, and any external model or API usage.

Free & cheaper DevOps & Deployment

same category, free plan or open-source license

Ciliumopen sourceFree and 100% open source under the Apache-2.0 license (with dual GPL-2.0/BSD-2-Clause BPF datapath templates) as a CNCF Graduated project. Cilium has no software licensing fees for self-hosted or cloud Kubernetes deployments (including GKE Dataplane V2 and Azure CNI Powered by Cilium); organizations pay only for their compute infrastructure. For mission-critical enterprise environments, Isovalent Enterprise for Cilium (by Cisco) provides quote-based annual subscriptions (per-node/environment) with 24/7 SLA support, hardened LTS builds, Customer Testing Environments (CuTEs), enterprise BGP/EVPN, and advanced multi-cluster security and observability retention.MCP Inspectoropen sourceFree and 100% open source under the MIT license ($0 software cost). mcp-inspector is the official Model Context Protocol developer testing suite, running entirely locally via npx/Node.js with no subscription tiers, cloud fees, or telemetry.OrbStackFree for personal and non-commercial use, educational studies, and open-source development. Commercial and business use (or individuals generating >$10,000/year) requires a paid Pro license at $8/user/month billed annually ($96/year) or $10/month monthly, covering up to 5 devices per user with priority support and a 30-day trial. Enterprise plans provide custom volume pricing, centralized billing, MDM/SSO directory integration, and 99.9% uptime SLAs.Rayopen sourceRay is a free and open-source distributed computing framework governed by the PyTorch Foundation under the Apache 2.0 license. It can be self-hosted on any cloud or on-prem cluster with zero licensing costs, while managed execution is available via cloud providers like Anyscale.

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FAQ

How much does Higress cost?

100% free and open source under Apache-2.0 ($0 self-host). Higress by Alibaba is an Envoy/Istio-based cloud-native API and AI gateway unifying Ingress, microservices, and LLM routing.

Does Higress have a free plan?

Yes — Higress is open source and free to use.

Can you self-host Higress for free?

Higress is open source under the Apache-2.0 license. Self-hosting does not add a software license fee, but you still pay for infrastructure, operations, and any external model or API usage.

What are free or cheaper Higress alternatives?

Cilium, MCP Inspector, OrbStack are in the same category with a free plan or open-source license.

pricing is editorial catalog data (last verified September 6, 2026) — vendors change plans; confirm on the official site before you buy. Reuse this data under CC-BY 4.0 via /data.