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Cloud · head to head

Longhorn vs Spring Cloud Gateway

Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Spring Cloud Gateway logo

Spring Cloud Gateway

APIs

API gateway built on Project Reactor for building microservices

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.; Spring Cloud Gateway released under the Apache 2.0 license, free and open source with no commercial tier
  • They diverge on capability: Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Spring Cloud Gateway covers Routing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Longhorn and Spring Cloud Gateway actually diverge.

Attributes where Longhorn and Spring Cloud Gateway differ
AttributeLonghornSpring Cloud Gateway
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeopen-source
PlatformsLinux, KubernetesJava, Spring Boot
CategoryCloudAPIs
FoundedUnknown1998

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

Only in Spring Cloud Gateway

  • Routing
  • Path Rewriting
  • Circuit Breaker
  • Spring Boot
  • Spring Security
  • Spring Cloud
  • Java support
  • Spring Boot support

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Spring Cloud Gateway
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Spring Cloud Gateway
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Spring Cloud Gateway
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot Spring Cloud Gateway

Spring Cloud Gateway

  • API Developmentnot Longhorn
  • API Gatewaynot Longhorn
  • API Testingnot Longhorn
  • API Documentationnot Longhorn
  • Microservicesnot Longhorn

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

Spring Cloud Gateway

  • Released under the Apache 2.0 license, free and open source with no commercial tier

Pricing, plan by plan

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

Spring Cloud Gateway

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Core Spring Cloud Gateway
    • Community support

Which should you pick?

Choose Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Choose Spring Cloud Gateway if

  • You need routing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Java, Spring Boot.
  • You also want path rewriting.
Spring Cloud Gateway review

Questions people ask

Is Longhorn or Spring Cloud Gateway better?
Neither clearly leads. Longhorn starts at Free and Spring Cloud Gateway at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Longhorn or Spring Cloud Gateway?
Longhorn starts at Free and Spring Cloud Gateway at Free.
Does Longhorn or Spring Cloud Gateway run on more platforms?
Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes. Spring Cloud Gateway runs on Java, Spring Boot.
Can I use Longhorn for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Longhorn best used for?
Longhorn is most often used for an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes, edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster, a k3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloads, a team that wants snapshots and s3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licences. Of those, an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes and edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster are not what Spring Cloud Gateway is typically brought in for.
What can Longhorn do that Spring Cloud Gateway cannot?
Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion. Spring Cloud Gateway covers Routing, Path Rewriting, Circuit Breaker, Spring Boot.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

Spring Cloud Gateway: Is Spring Cloud Gateway free?

Yes, Spring Cloud Gateway is free and open-source software. It is part of the Spring ecosystem and available through GitHub repositories with open-source dependencies like spring-cloud-starter-gateway-server-webflux and spring-cloud-starter-gateway-server-webmvc.

Source
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

Spring Cloud Gateway: What enterprise support is available for Spring Cloud Gateway?

Tanzu Spring provides optional enterprise support including Day 0 access to security patches for organizations requiring guaranteed support, but specific pricing is not published on the Spring Cloud Gateway project page.

Source
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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