aklivity/zilla

What it solves

Zilla is a stateless, multi-protocol gateway that simplifies how applications and AI agents connect to event-driven systems and external tools. It eliminates the need for custom protocol bridges, fragmented authentication, and per-provider wrappers by providing a unified interface for accessing Apache Kafka, MQTT, and various AI toolsets.

How it works

Zilla uses a protocol-native streaming engine designed for high performance and minimal latency. It provides two primary surfaces:

• Event Gateway: Exposes Apache Kafka and MQTT to clients via HTTP, SSE, gRPC, MQTT, or WebSockets.
• MCP Gateway: Acts as a federated proxy for AI agents, aggregating multiple Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, HTTP APIs, and OpenAPI services into a single governed endpoint. It namespaces capabilities (e.g., toolkit__capability) to avoid collisions and manages authentication, authorization, and telemetry across these providers.

Who it’s for

Developers building event-driven architectures or AI agents that need to secure, govern, and observe their interactions with multiple backend services, APIs, and event streams.

Highlights

• Unified Gateway: Manages both event streaming and AI agent toolkits through a single configuration file.
• MCP Federation: Combines multiple MCP providers behind one virtual server for AI agents.
• Protocol Translation: Bridges Kafka and MQTT to application-friendly protocols like REST/HTTP.
• Governance: Provides built-in authentication, authorization, and schema guardrails for JSON, Avro, and Protobuf payloads.
• Observability: Records MCP metrics, durations, and lifecycle events without requiring changes to backend providers.