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Ingress Is Old School? Here’s When to Switch to Gateway API

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In the world of Kubernetes, Ingress has long been the go-to solution for exposing services to the outside world. Simple, battle-tested, and widely supported — it’s been a reliable piece of the Kubernetes puzzle.

But as modern applications grow more complex and teams demand greater flexibility, the cracks in Ingress are starting to show.

Gateway API — a next-generation alternative designed to overcome the limitations of Ingress with a more powerful, extensible, and role-friendly architecture.

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In this article, we’ll explore why Ingress might be becoming “old school,” what makes Gateway API a game changer, and how to decide which one is right for your setup.

Let’s break down the difference in detail:

❏ Ingress

  • Ingress is an API object that manages external access (usually HTTP/S) to services in a Kubernetes cluster.
  • It typically requires an Ingress Controller (e.g., NGINX, HAProxy, Traefik) to function.

✅ Key Components:

  • Ingress: The object that defines routing rules.
  • Ingress Controller: The actual implementation that fulfils the rules.

✅ How it works:

You define an Ingress resource with rules mapping hostnames and paths to services. The controller reads these and updates its reverse proxy config.

✅ Pros:

  • Simple and widely adopted.
  • Supports SSL termination, path-based routing, etc.

❌ Limitations:

  • HTTP/HTTPS Only: No native support for TCP, gRPC, or WebSockets.
  • Tightly Coupled: Routing rules and infrastructure config live in the same object.
  • Limited Extensibility: Custom features require messy annotations, leading to controller-specific behaviour.
  • No Role Separation: Hard to delegate responsibilities across teams.
  • Multi-tenancy is painful: Sharing an Ingress safely across namespaces is complicated.

❏ Gateway API

Gateway API is a next-generation Kubernetes networking API designed to replace or enhance Ingress.

It’s more expressive, extensible, and role-oriented, and it supports modern use cases out of the box.

✅ Key Components:

  • GatewayClass: Defines the controller type.
  • Gateway: Instantiates the GatewayClass and defines listener config (ports, protocols).
  • HTTPRoute, TCPRoute, TLSRoute, GRPCRoute: Define routing rules for specific protocols.
  • BackendPolicy, RoutePolicy: Used for advanced routing and policies.

✅ How it works:

You define a GatewayClass (e.g., for Istio or Envoy), then create a Gateway resource that listens for traffic. Routes (e.g., HTTPRoute) are attached to Gateways to define where to send the traffic.

✅ Pros:

Supports More Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, TLS, gRPC out of the box.

Decoupled Architecture:

  • GatewayClass: Defines the type of controller.
  • Gateway: Defines listener config and lifecycle.
  • HTTPRoute, TCPRoute, etc.: Defines routing logic.

Improved Role Separation: Infra teams manage Gateways; app teams define routes.

Cross-Namespace Routing: Perfect for multi-tenant clusters.

Better Extensibility: Built-in support for policies and future enhancements.

❌ Limitations:

  • Newer, less widely adopted than Ingress (but growing fast).
  • Slightly more complex to configure.

📌When to Stick With Ingress?

Ingress is not going away soon. If you’re in a small-scale or stable setup, it might still serve your needs well.

Stick with Ingress if:

  • Your app only needs basic HTTP/HTTPS routing.
  • You use a mature Ingress Controller (like NGINX) and don’t plan to scale complexity.
  • You’re dealing with legacy systems that are tightly integrated with Ingress.
  • You want to keep Kubernetes resource usage simple and avoid the overhead of new APIs.

📌When to Switch to Gateway API?

Consider migrating to Gateway API if:

  • You need multi-protocol support (e.g., TCP or gRPC).
  • You’re building a platform for multiple teams or tenants.
  • You want clean separation of concerns between networking and app teams.
  • You’re using or plan to use service meshes (like Istio), which already support Gateway API.
  • You want to adopt modern traffic management practices like header-based routing, canary rollouts, or route-level policies.

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