# Aklivity > Aklivity builds Zilla, a stateless multi-protocol gateway for event-driven > applications and AI agents. Zilla translates HTTP, SSE, WebSocket, MQTT, gRPC > and MCP Streamable HTTP to and from Apache Kafka and other backends, driven > entirely by a declarative `zilla.yaml` — or directly from an OpenAPI or > AsyncAPI document. Aklivity is a SOFTWARE vendor, not a service operator: every > Zilla runs inside the customer's own infrastructure. Generated by API Evangelist on 2026-08-30 from Aklivity's public documentation, GitHub organization and package registries. Aklivity publishes no llms.txt of its own (https://www.aklivity.io/llms.txt and https://docs.aklivity.io/llms.txt both return 404 as of this date). ## What an agent needs to know first - **There is no Aklivity API to call.** api., app., console., cloud., platform. and mcp.aklivity.io are all NXDOMAIN. Aklivity's own Technical and Organizational Measures document states it "provides a self-managed, container-based software solution that customers deploy within their own environments" and "does not operate or access customer data or infrastructure by default." - **Aklivity ships an MCP GATEWAY, not an MCP server.** Zilla's `mcp`, `mcp-http`, `mcp-openapi`, `mcp-kafka`, `mcp-kafka-connect` and `mcp-schema-registry` bindings let an operator expose THEIR APIs, Kafka topics and schema registries as MCP tools. Any MCP endpoint you reach that was built with Zilla belongs to that operator. - **The machine-readable contract is a config schema, not an OpenAPI.** `engine.schema.json` (JSON Schema draft 2019-09) defines the whole `zilla.yaml` surface: namespaces, bindings, guards, vaults, catalogs, stores and telemetry. - **No client SDKs exist, by design.** Zilla speaks standard wire protocols, so consumers use ordinary HTTP/MQTT/gRPC/MCP clients. ## Products - [Zilla Gateway](https://www.aklivity.io/zilla-kafka-gateway): multi-protocol data plane. HTTP, SSE, WebSocket, MQTT, gRPC, TCP, TLS to and from Kafka. - [Zilla MCP Gateway](https://www.aklivity.io/zilla-mcp-gateway): governed agent access to APIs, services and real-time data. Toolkit routing, multi-server aggregation, tool discovery, listing cache, elicitation, OAuth guard. - [Zilla Console](https://www.aklivity.io/zilla-console): management layer — API and data-product catalog, self-service developer portal, governance, audit, RBAC. Enterprise, or a flat-rate add-on to Plus. - [ZillaBase](https://github.com/aklivity/zillabase): event-driven backend framework built on Kafka and Zilla. Last release 0.5.3 (2025-03-11). ## Documentation - [Documentation home](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/) - [Getting started](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/getting-started/) - [Quickstart cookbook](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/cookbooks/quickstart/) - [Configuration reference 2.x](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/reference/2.x/) - [Configuration reference 1.x](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/reference/1.x/) - [AI gateway / MCP gateway](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/ai-gateway/mcp-gateway/) - [Kafka gateway](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/kafka-gateway/) - [Zilla Console](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/zilla-console/) - [Deploy and configure](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/deployment/) - [Release notes](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/releases/) - [Support](https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/support/) ## Specifications and standards - OpenAPI 3.0.3 / 3.1.0 — consumed as configuration and compiled into MCP tools - AsyncAPI 2.6.0 / 3.0.1 — consumed as configuration - Model Context Protocol, Streamable HTTP — implemented - JSON Schema draft-04 through 2020-12, Avro, Protobuf — runtime payload validation - MQTT, gRPC, SSE, WebSocket, HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 (RFC 7230 family) - OAuth 2.0 (client credentials, RFC 7523 jwt-bearer, RFC 8693 token exchange), JWT/JWKS, X.509 / mTLS - OpenTelemetry OTLP, Prometheus exposition, Syslog RFC 5424 - Not implemented: RFC 9457 problem details, SCIM, OData ## Install - Docker: `docker run -v ./zilla.yaml:/etc/zilla/zilla.yaml ghcr.io/aklivity/zilla:latest start -ve` - Helm: `helm install [RELEASE_NAME] oci://ghcr.io/aklivity/charts/zilla` - Homebrew: `brew tap aklivity/tap && brew install zilla` (formula pins 0.9.159 — well behind the 2.3.0 runtime) - VS Code extension: `aklivity.zilla-vscode-ext` (v1.0.27, 2024-10-31) ## CLIs - `zilla` — start, stop, logs, metrics, dump, tune, version, help - `zpm` — install, wrap, clean, encrypt, help (resolves from https://maven.packages.aklivity.io) ## Versions - Zilla 2.3.0, released 2026-08-14. 1.x maintenance line still active (1.3.1, 2026-08-18). - The 1.x-to-2.x boundary is backwards-incompatible at the config level: https://docs.aklivity.io/latest/deployment/migrating-to-2.x/ ## Commercial - [Pricing](https://www.aklivity.io/pricing) — priced per gateway. No per-seat charges, no throughput metering. Community free; Plus and Enterprise are contract-priced (Enterprise from 8 gateways). - [AWS Marketplace](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-jshnzslazfm44) - [Terms of service](https://www.aklivity.io/terms-of-service) - [Privacy policy](https://www.aklivity.io/privacy-policy) - [Aklivity Community License](https://www.aklivity.io/aklivity-community-license) ## Source and community - [GitHub organization](https://github.com/aklivity) - [aklivity/zilla](https://github.com/aklivity/zilla) — issues, releases, examples - [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/aklivity/zilla/discussions) - [Community Slack](https://join.slack.com/t/aklivitycommunity/shared_invite/zt-sy06wvr9-u6cPmBNQplX5wVfd9l2oIQ) - [Postman workspace (quickstart)](https://www.postman.com/aklivity-zilla/workspace/aklivity-zilla-quickstart/overview) - [Blog](https://www.aklivity.io/blog) ## Security - [Security policy](https://www.aklivity.io/security) — contact security@aklivity.io - Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (PDF), acknowledgment within 3 business days, target disclosure within 90 days, PGP key published - Technical and Organizational Measures (PDF) — SBOM per release, SAST and dependency scanning in CI, Trivy/Snyk container scans. SOC 2 alignment is recorded as in-progress; NO certification is published. - No `/.well-known/security.txt` is served on any Aklivity host. ## Optional - [Case studies and resources](https://www.aklivity.io/resources) - [Partners](https://www.aklivity.io/partners) — Confluent, AWS, Redpanda - [Careers](https://www.aklivity.io/careers)