Backfire compared with an egress allowlist gateway

Which one you actually need

If your traffic leaves from a Kubernetes estate you operate and a reviewer will ask for network-level enforcement, buy the gateway. If your traffic leaves from serverless functions, an agent runtime or a partner's workflow where you do not control the network at all, a gateway has nowhere to sit — and the enforcement point you can actually own is inside the call.

Side by side

# Gateway model: policy at the edge of your own network
egress-policy: allow *.partner.example, deny 169.254.0.0/16, deny 10.0.0.0/8
# ...enforced for every pod, whether or not the developer knew the rule existed.

# Relay model: the check travels with the call
POST /functions/forward
{ "url": "https://api.partner.example/v1/orders", "method": "GET" }
# → guarded here, because there is no pod to put a policy in front of

Where the other one wins

• Say it plainly: Backfire does not clear an enterprise security review. There is no SOC 2 report, no ISO certificate, no SLA, no SSO and no per-key host allowlist yet. If those rows are pass/fail for you, the gateway wins on the paperwork alone.
• A gateway is the better control where it can be installed, because it does not depend on a developer remembering to route the call. Backfire depends on exactly that, and no marketing page changes it.
• The gap it fills is real though: in Lambda, an edge function, a no-code workflow or an agent tool call, there is no network you can police. The only place left to check a destination is the call itself.
• Backfire is also one person. That is a trade — faster to talk to, impossible to hold to a support contract. Compare accordingly.

What Backfire will not do

• No SSO, RBAC, certification, SLA or support contract. An enterprise buyer should pick the gateway.
• Application-level only: a service that fetches directly is completely uncovered.
• No per-key host allowlist yet, so policy is the account and the key, not a destination list.
• Single operator. No audit report, no pen-test attestation, no vendor questionnaire completed.

Other comparisons