#25 in Automation & WorkflowUpdated 2026-08

Orbital

by Orbital · Data gateway that builds API, database and stream integrations on demand

46.7 — BenchRank score out of 100

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Overview

Orbital is a data gateway that connects APIs, databases and event streams. You embed semantic type tags in OpenAPI, Protobuf or database schemas and query with Taxi; Orbital works out where each field comes from and builds the integration on demand. Queries can be published as REST endpoints or event streams and deployed by git push.

Best for: Engineering teams wiring together microservices, databases and event streams without writing glue code
Pricing: Free tier, then Starter at $1,500/month and Business at $70,000/year, with Enterprise on request; extra calls cost $1,000 per 1M on Starter and $405 per 1M on Business.
Runs on: Self-hosted

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

Builds integrations from schema tags, no glue code or resolvers
Connects HTTP, gRPC, databases, Kafka/RabbitMQ, Lambda and GraphQL
Automatic API and data catalogue with call traces and lineage
Free tier, plus a install script and docker-compose to run it

Trade-offs

Big jump from the free plan to Starter at $1,500/month
SSO/SAML, 3 environments and HA only from Business at $70,000/year
Free plan has no authentication and keeps lineage for 1 hour
Requires learning Taxi and tagging your specs with semantic types

Pricing

Published plans from Orbital’s own pricing page, in USD. Usage charges and add-ons may apply on top.

Orbital pricing tiers, monthly rates in USD
Plan	Monthly	Includes
Free	—	250K calls / month 1 user, 5 endpoints, 1 environment Community support No authentication, SSO or cache integration
Starter	$1500flat rate, 5 users included	2M calls / month, 20 endpoints Prometheus metrics endpoint Authentication and endpoint-level access rules Business-hours support
Business	—flat rate, 15 users included	$70,000 / yr for 25M calls / month and 100 endpoints 3 environments and high availability SSO / SAML / OIDC, data authorization and data policies Priority support and private Slack
Enterprise	Contact sales	150M+ calls / month, 50 users, 500 endpoints SSO plus SCIM provisioning and SIEM export Air-gapped deployment and custom MSA 24×7 support and named TAM

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 0 out of 100
API quality: 20 out of 100
Documentation: 70 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 70 out of 100
Pricing transparency: 85 out of 100
Changelog: 100 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 50 out of 100
Operational trust: 0 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 55 out of 100
Maintenance: 85 out of 100

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