Aklivity

What Aklivity does

Aklivity, Inc. is a Palo Alto-based software company that provides event-native API infrastructure for Apache Kafka. The company's core product, Zilla, is a streaming-native, multi-protocol API gateway that performs protocol translation between Kafka and HTTP, gRPC, Server-Sent Events, MQTT, WebSockets, AMQP, and PostgreSQL. The runtime is a custom-built, event-driven engine (not a wrapper around Netty or Apache MINA) with a stateless, one-worker-per-core architecture designed for high throughput, low latency, and SIMD-optimized schema validation.

Aklivity sells Zilla as a three-tier product family: Zilla Gateway (open source, self-managed), Zilla Plus (commercial gateway distributed via AWS Marketplace with tiered enterprise support), and Zilla Platform (the enterprise management control plane that adds API data products, Kafka Endpoints with policy enforcement, a self-service developer portal, field-level encryption, and unified observability). The company targets enterprise platform engineering teams and named customers in financial services (Baader Bank, N Brown), industrial automation/IIoT (KONE, Hertshten Group, Securi Things), energy (Enphase), medical devices (Intuitive), and IT services (Sopra Steria).

Revenue is generated through recurring subscriptions to Zilla Platform and Zilla Plus (priced by users and deployed gateways), tiered enterprise support plans (Platinum and Gold), AWS Marketplace contracts, and a Partner Services Program, with an open-source Community Edition and a 30-day free trial feeding the top of the funnel. The company has raised approximately $4.35 million in venture funding to date (a $4.1M seed in May 2022 led by 468 Capital, and a $250K earlier round from Pear VC), employs 11–50 people distributed across the U.S. (West Coast, East Coast), Europe, and India, and earned the AWS Data and Analytics Competency in 2026.

Name

Aklivity

Legal name

Aklivity, Inc.

Website

https://aklivity.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Aklivity provides event-native API infrastructure (Zilla product line) that exposes Apache Kafka as governed, multi-protocol APIs for enterprise platform teams in financial services, industrial/IIoT, and AI/data engineering, with revenue from subscriptions, AWS Marketplace, and tiered support contracts.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

API Management Software / Streaming Data Infrastructure

NAICS

Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

API-Led Integration Middleware (Integration Gateways) (HDAEACAL)

Keywords

• API gateway software
• Kafka API management
• Event streaming gateway
• Multi-protocol proxy
• Streaming data infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Palo Alto

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Zilla Platform Subscription (Standard & Enterprise): Recurring contract-based subscription to Zilla Platform priced by number of users and deployed Zilla Plus Gateways; Enterprise tier includes 24/7 support, IAM, and Technical Account Manager.
2. AWS Marketplace Zilla Plus Sales: Zilla Plus sold as an AMI on AWS Marketplace with contract-based pricing, including support tier add-ons.
3. Enterprise Support Plans (Platinum & Gold): Tiered enterprise support subscriptions: Platinum (24x7, 2-hour response SLA) and Gold (12x5, 8-hour response SLA), purchased alongside Zilla Plus.
4. Open Source / Free Trial Funnel: Zilla Community Edition is open source on GitHub; Zilla Platform is offered with a 30-day free trial to drive land-and-expand adoption into paid tiers.
5. Professional Services / Partner Enablement: Aklivity operates a Partner Services Program that delivers implementation, integration, and consulting services around Zilla deployments.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion5 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Aklivity provides the Zilla product family — a streaming-native, multi-protocol API gateway for Apache Kafka that exposes Kafka topics as governed, real-time APIs (data products) across HTTP, gRPC, SSE, MQTT, WebSocket, and native Kafka protocols. The platform centralizes identity, schema validation, rate limiting, field-level encryption, and access control at the gateway edge, replacing custom middleware, MQTT brokers, and L4 load balancers with a single Kafka-native gateway. Offerings span open-source Zilla Gateway, commercial Zilla Plus Gateway, and the enterprise Zilla Platform management control plane.

Product overview

Aklivity offers a single, tiered product family built around Zilla, a streaming-native, multi-protocol API gateway for Apache Kafka. The portfolio consists of three tiers: (1) Zilla Gateway (Zilla Community Edition), the open-source edge and service proxy that performs protocol translation for HTTP, gRPC, SSE, MQTT, WebSocket, and Kafka with declarative YAML configuration and a stateless runtime; (2) Zilla Plus Gateway, the commercial extension that adds Kafka client proxying, custom domain support, AWS Glue and Confluent Schema Registry integrations, CloudWatch/Syslog logging, secure public/private access to Amazon MSK and Confluent Cloud, virtual clusters, and enterprise support; and (3) Zilla Platform, the enterprise management control plane layered on Zilla Plus that delivers API data products, Kafka Endpoints with policy enforcement, a self-service developer portal, Kafka governance, field-level encryption/PII redaction, and unified observability. Together the three tiers let organizations expose Kafka as governed, real-time APIs across protocols, enforce shift-left governance at the gateway edge, and stream data products to apps, partners, and AI agents.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Zilla: Aklivity's streaming-native, multi-protocol API gateway product line, including the open-source Zilla Gateway, the commercial Zilla Plus Gateway, and the enterprise Zilla Platform for unified real-time data management.

Products and services

• Zilla Platform Enterprise management control plane built on Zilla Gateway that provides API data products, Kafka Endpoints with policy enforcement, a self-service developer portal, Kafka governance policies, data privacy and field-level encryption, and unified observability and diagnostics. Positioned as "Kafka's Missing Management Layer" for governing and securing data streams for Kafka-native and non-Kafka consumers.
• Zilla Plus Gateway
• Zilla Gateway (Zilla Community Edition) Open-source, multi-protocol, event-native edge and service proxy that performs protocol translation for HTTP, gRPC, SSE, MQTT, WebSocket, and native Kafka with declarative YAML configuration, a stateless runtime, and schema validation. Licensed open source on GitHub and serves as the free entry-tier funnel.

Quantifiable outcome

• <3% added proxy latency (homepage claim); 3x throughput vs. alternatives under equivalent load
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration30 records

AI capability9 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship strategic partner (data and analytics competency), core technology integration partner, core distribution channel, core authentication integration, supporting integration, supporting integration (zilla+ only) and core gtm channel.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)flagship strategic partner (data and analytics competency)Strategic or Co-development Partner · 3 June 2026AWS awarded Aklivity the AWS Data and Analytics Competency in 2026 after a multi-month technical and business evaluation. Zilla Plus is sold on the AWS Marketplace, integrates natively with Amazon MSK (Secure Public/Private Access, custom domains, AWS Nitro Enclaves for TLS key isolation, AWS Glue Schema Registry, CloudWatch), and is referenced in joint AWS Big Data blog posts.
• Confluent (Confluent Cloud)core technology integration partnerTechnology or IntegrationZilla Plus integrates with Confluent Cloud, benchmarked on Confluent Cloud (2 CKU Basic cluster) with multi-tenant virtual clusters, secure public access, and multi-protocol support over the same brokers. Listed in the Aklivity partner directory.
• Redpandacore technology integration partnerTechnology or IntegrationZilla supports connecting apps, clients, and services to Redpanda, enabling real-time event mesh patterns (gRPC, REST) and CQRS-style architectures over Redpanda streams.
• AWS Marketplace (channel)core distribution channelChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorZilla Plus is offered as an AMI on AWS Marketplace with one-click CloudFormation subscribe; Aklivity also referenced in the AWS Partner directory under 'Zilla Plus for Amazon MSK'.
• Microsoft (Azure AD / Microsoft Entra ID)core authentication integrationTechnology or IntegrationZilla Plus supports authentication and authorization via Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) for enterprise FinServ deployments, with fine-grained access control to event streams.
• Apicurio Registrysupporting integrationTechnology or IntegrationSupported as a Catalog in Zilla for centralized schema management and data validation across HTTP, MQTT, and Kafka bindings.
• Karapace Schema Registrysupporting integrationTechnology or IntegrationSupported as a Catalog in Zilla; example HTTP-Kafka quickstart uses Karapace for schema management.
• AWS Glue Schema Registrysupporting integration (zilla+ only)Technology or IntegrationSupported as a Catalog in Zilla Plus for centralized schema management on AWS.
• Confluent Schema Registrysupporting integration (zilla+ only)Technology or IntegrationSupported as a Catalog in Zilla Plus for centralized schema management with Confluent-ecosystem Kafka deployments.
• AWS Lambdasupporting integrationTechnology or IntegrationZilla Plus supports AWS Lambda as a Guard to enforce custom authorization logic as part of the access control flow.
• Partner Services Program (Aklivity partners)core gtm channelImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerAklivity offers partnership opportunities for organizations that share the mission of making real-time data accessible, secure, and actionable; partners help with implementation and integration services around Zilla deployments.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Confluent: Confluent is the leading commercial vendor of Apache Kafka and offers Confluent Cloud with built-in multi-protocol ingress, Connect, and serverless offerings that overlap directly with Zilla's gateway and data-product functionality. Aklivity is benchmarked on Confluent Cloud and integrates with its Schema Registry.
• Redpanda: Redpanda is a Kafka-compatible streaming platform that competes head-on with both Confluent and the underlying Kafka workloads Zilla is deployed in front of. Aklivity lists Redpanda as a supported integration, and Redpanda also pursues multi-protocol API exposure strategies that compete for the same platform-team budget.
• Kong: Kong is an API gateway and service-mesh vendor with native Kafka connectivity and a similar developer-led, open-source-to-enterprise GTM motion. Both Aklivity and Kong target platform teams building self-service API and event-stream exposure, though Kong's breadth extends to non-streaming APIs.
• Solo.io: Solo.io provides API gateway, service mesh, and ingress tooling (Gloo) with Kafka support, targeting platform teams in cloud-native enterprises. The overlap with Zilla is direct on multi-protocol gateway functionality and developer-portal-driven self-service.
• Gravitee: Gravitee is an open-source API management platform with Kafka event-API capabilities, positioned for enterprises building API products over event streams. It competes with Zilla's API Data Products value proposition for platform teams and FinServ customers.

Emerging players

• Conduktor: Conduktor is a Kafka-focused developer and operator tooling vendor offering a desktop client, gateway, and observability features. It overlaps with Zilla on Kafka governance and access-control use cases, particularly for platform teams.
• Lenses.io: Lenses.io provides a data operations platform for Apache Kafka with SQL processing, observability, and governance features. It overlaps with Zilla's Kafka governance, data product, and FinServ compliance positioning.

Broad incumbents

• Apigee (Google Cloud): Apigee is a broad API management platform from Google Cloud that competes for the enterprise API platform budget Aklivity targets with Zilla Platform. While it lacks Kafka-native depth, it competes as the incumbent API gateway choice inside many large enterprises.
• MuleSoft (Salesforce): MuleSoft is a broad enterprise integration and API platform that competes with Zilla Platform for the same platform-team and FinServ budget. It does not match Zilla's streaming-native depth, but it is the default incumbent in many large enterprises evaluating API strategy.
• AWS API Gateway: AWS API Gateway is the native, bundled alternative that enterprises often consider alongside Zilla for exposing APIs in front of MSK. As a hyperscaler-bundled incumbent, it competes on price and procurement convenience rather than streaming-specific feature parity.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/aklivityinc
• GitHubgithub.com/aklivity
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/aklivity

Compliance4 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Aklivity