Article · Updated November 1, 2026 · By the Hooks team

What is a webhook gateway?

Short answer: A webhook gateway is a service that sits between webhook providers and your application. It receives each provider's request, verifies the signature, optionally filters or reshapes the payload, then forwards it to your destination with retries and a delivery log. Your app handles one stable contract instead of every provider's quirks.

Provider webhooks look similar until you integrate a second one. Each has its own signature header, event types, retry behaviour, and payload shape. A gateway absorbs those differences once.

What the gateway does on every request

Receive: each source posts to a unique endpoint URL on the gateway instead of your server. Rotating that URL is how you cut off a misbehaving sender.

Verify: the gateway checks the provider's signature against a shared secret and rejects replayed timestamps before anything reaches your code.

Filter and reshape: rules drop irrelevant event types, and payload templates build the exact body each destination expects.

Deliver and record: every forward attempt is queued, retried with exponential backoff, and stored with its response status so you can inspect or replay it.

When you do not need one

If you receive one low-volume source and already have signature verification, retries, and logging in your handler, a gateway adds a hop without adding much. The case for one grows with each additional source, each additional destination, and each time you need to answer the question “did that delivery arrive?”

Receiving through a gateway

Point the provider at the endpoint URL the gateway gives you. The call below is what GitHub sends; the gateway answers and queues the forward.

Inbound request

curl -X POST "https://api.hooks.events/in/whk_9f3k1a" \
  -H "X-Hooks-Signature: t=1739,v1=8f2c..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"type":"push","repo":"acme/api"}'

Frequently asked questions

Is a webhook gateway the same as an API gateway?

No. An API gateway fronts requests your clients make to your API. A webhook gateway handles requests providers make to you: it verifies provider signatures, normalizes payloads, and manages delivery to your own endpoints.

Does a gateway replace my application's webhook handler?

It replaces the plumbing around the handler. Your handler still decides what an event means, but verification, retries, filtering, and delivery history move to the gateway.

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