> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.conduktor.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Kafka proxy and governance

> Conduktor Gateway is a transparent Kafka proxy that enforces encryption, governance policies, traffic control, data masking, and multi-tenancy.

Conduktor Gateway is a network proxy for Apache Kafka, complete with an extensible and dynamic plugin mechanism that can be used to add technical and business logic on top of your existing Kafka deployment.

<Info>
  **Learn more:** [Conduktor Gateway](https://www.conduktor.io/gateway) The product overview: what Gateway does and the problems it solves.
</Info>

## Gateway benefits

This can be used to provide functionality that is not available in Kafka natively, such as:

* **Centrally configure encryption** at the field-level or full payload.
* **Mask sensitive data** at the proxy layer.
* **Enforce governance and traffic control policies** — rate limits, data quality rules, topic creation constraints.
* **Leverage multi-tenancy** with Virtual Clusters and topic concentration.
* **Empower development teams** with self-service governance.

Supports all Kafka providers (Confluent, AWS MSK, Redpanda, Aiven, Apache Kafka).

Gateway is one of the main [Conduktor components](/guide/conduktor-in-production/deploy-artifacts) and together with [Console](/guide/conduktor-in-production/deploy-artifacts/deploy-console) make up the Conduktor platform:

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/conduktor/5EJ7wLye3NldS4M8/images/conduktor-overview.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=5EJ7wLye3NldS4M8&q=85&s=96ef1070c75b8f63c5b15142116869a7" alt="Conduktor overview" style={{maxWidth: '100%', paddingTop: '10px'}} width="2372" height="1603" data-path="images/conduktor-overview.png" />

## How it works

Gateway acts as a Kafka-compliant middle layer between clients and Kafka clusters.

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/conduktor/YlJn6qrEZm6kp3UE/images/gateway-integration.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=YlJn6qrEZm6kp3UE&q=85&s=7a9fc6538a9ff9a38ca28425d7b35dc6" alt="Conduktor Gateway" width="400" data-path="images/gateway-integration.png" />

### Authentication

Supports multiple security protocols:

* PLAINTEXT
* SSL
* SASL SSL
* mTLS

### Interceptors

Use Interceptors to add logic like encryption or filtering. [Find out about Interceptors](/guide/conduktor-concepts/interceptors).

## Related resources

* [Deploy Gateway](/guide/conduktor-in-production/deploy-artifacts/deploy-gateway)
* [Gateway resource reference](/guide/reference/gateway-reference)
* [Gateway API](https://developers.conduktor.io/?product=gateway)
* [Give us feedback/request a feature](https://conduktor.io/roadmap)
* [Arrange a technical demo](https://www.conduktor.io/contact/demo)