No. 5 of 27 ·Kubernetes Ingress Controllers

Contour

Self-hosted

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.3

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely0 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Contour is ranked #5 of 27 in Kubernetes ingress controllers on Freedom251. It runs on Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

Contour plans and pricing

All plans

Contour Free Open source Kubernetes ingress controller · community support projectcontour.io · 3 Oct 2026

Compared on Kubernetes ingress controllers

Free plan: Yes
Ingress API model: both
TLS automation: Yes
Canary routing: Yes
Rate limiting: Yes
Auth policies: Yes
Deployment model: self-hosted

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The record

Purpose: Contour is an open source Kubernetes ingress controller that provides the control plane for the Envoy edge and service proxy.
Ingress configuration: Contour supports Kubernetes Ingress v1, its HTTPProxy custom resource, and Gateway API.
Dynamic updates: Contour dynamically updates ingress configuration with minimal dropped connections.
Multi-team clusters: Contour supports multiple types of ingress configuration in multi-team Kubernetes clusters.
Deployment: Contour can be deployed as a Kubernetes deployment or daemonset.
TLS delegation: Administrators can securely delegate wildcard certificate access.
Security features: The documentation lists TLS termination and delegation, client authorization, rate limiting, JWT verification, and IP filtering features.
Integrations: Contour documentation includes guides for cert-manager, Gatekeeper, AWS Network Load Balancer, and Prometheus metrics.
Observability: Contour and Envoy expose metrics that can be scraped with Prometheus.
Kubernetes versions: Contour is tested with Kubernetes clusters running version 1.21 and later.
Target users: Contour is designed to serve both cluster administrators and application developers.
Support: The project provides community support through its GitHub project page and invites users to file issues or ask questions there.
Project status: Contour is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubating project.
Security documentation: Contour documentation provides a threat model and security posture page, a security report process, and a security fix checklist.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Kubernetes Ingress Controllers in 2026#5 of 27

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Sources

projectcontour.io· checked 3 Oct 2026
projectcontour.io/docs/main/· checked 3 Oct 2026
projectcontour.io/docs/1.28/guides/prometheus/· checked 3 Oct 2026