Zilla Gateway
Documentation
Multi-Protocol Edge & Service Proxy
for Event-Driven Architectures
Zilla replaces custom code, Kafka Connect, and MQTT brokers with a stateless, cloud-native gateway that handles protocol mediation, auth, schema validation, and TLS all in one place.
Key Concepts
Protocol
HTTP, Kafka, MQTT, gRPC, SSE, and WebSocket, all in one proxy.
→Proxy
Mediate between protocols at the edge without custom middleware.
→Data Governance
Schema catalogs and models that enforce contracts at runtime.
→Observability
Logs, metrics, and exporters for full visibility into every stream.
→Security
JWT guards, TLS termination, vaults, and Kafka SASL, all built in.
→API Specifications
AsyncAPI and OpenAPI specs drive configuration and enforcement.
→Scalability
Stateless and cloud-native, scaling to millions of concurrent clients.
→Performance
Low-latency, high-throughput benchmarks on commodity hardware.
→What Zilla Enables
HTTP ↔ Kafka Gateway
Expose Kafka topics as REST or SSE endpoints. Producers and consumers talk HTTP while Zilla handles the Kafka protocol.
MQTT ↔ Kafka IoT Bridge
Connect IoT devices over MQTT directly to Kafka. No separate broker required; Zilla mediates the protocol natively.
gRPC ↔ Kafka Bridge
Route gRPC service calls to and from Kafka topics, enabling event-driven microservices without custom glue code.
Secure Public Access
Expose private Kafka clusters securely over the public internet with TLS, JWT auth, and schema validation enforced at the edge.
Secure Private Access
Give internal services private, authenticated access to Kafka clusters across VPCs and accounts, without exposing brokers to the public internet.
Virtual Clusters
Partition a single Kafka cluster into isolated virtual clusters, each with its own namespace, access controls, and topic routing.
How It Works
Configure Zilla declaratively to mediate protocols, enforce policies, and proxy traffic between clients and Kafka.
Describe bindings, guards, vaults, and telemetry in a YAML config or AsyncAPI spec.
Run Zilla via Docker, Helm, or as a native binary. Stateless and cloud-native from the start.
Clients connect over HTTP, MQTT, gRPC, SSE, or WebSocket; Zilla translates to Kafka.
Export metrics to Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, or CloudWatch with zero code changes.
Who It's For
Platform & Kafka Engineers
Share Kafka clusters across teams and protocols without managing multiple middleware stacks.
Application Developers
Build on real-time data streams using familiar protocols — HTTP, MQTT, gRPC — with no Kafka expertise required.
API Architects
Drive Zilla configuration directly from OpenAPI and AsyncAPI schemas for consistent, spec-first deployments.
Editions
Zilla CE
Free to deploy, modify, and run under the Aklivity Community License.
- ✓ HTTP, MQTT, gRPC, SSE, WebSocket
- ✓ AsyncAPI & OpenAPI spec-driven config
- ✓ JWT guards, TLS, schema validation
- ✓ Prometheus, OTLP exporters
- ✓ Kubernetes & Helm support
Zilla Plus EE
Adds enterprise integrations, production hardening, and dedicated support.
- ✓ Everything in Zilla CE
- ✓ Secure Public & Private Kafka Access
- ✓ Enterprise Integrations
- ✓ AWS MSK, Confluent Cloud templates
- ✓ Enterprise support SLAs