Apache APISIX — Cloud Native High-Performance API Gateway

What it is

Apache APISIX is a dynamic, real-time, high-performance API gateway built on NGINX and etcd. It provides rich traffic management features including load balancing, rate limiting, authentication, and observability through a large plugin ecosystem. Routes and plugins update in sub-millisecond time without server restarts.

It is designed for platform teams and API developers who need a production-grade gateway with dynamic configuration, multi-protocol support (HTTP, gRPC, WebSocket, MQTT), and extensibility via Lua or external plugins.

How it saves time or tokens

Traditional gateways require config file edits and process reloads to apply routing changes. APISIX stores all configuration in etcd and pushes updates to NGINX workers in real time. Adding a new route, enabling rate limiting, or switching upstream targets happens through an admin API call without downtime. The plugin marketplace covers common needs -- JWT auth, CORS, Prometheus metrics, fault injection -- so you rarely write custom code.

How to use

1. Start APISIX with Docker Compose.

git clone https://github.com/apache/apisix-docker
cd apisix-docker/example
docker compose -p apisix up -d

1. Create a route via the admin API.

curl -i http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/routes/1 \
  -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' \
  -X PUT -d '{
  "uri": "/get",
  "upstream": { "type": "roundrobin", "nodes": {"httpbin.org:80": 1} }
}'

1. Test the route.

curl http://127.0.0.1:9080/get

Example

Adding rate limiting to a route:

curl http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/routes/1 \
  -H 'X-API-KEY: edd1c9f034335f136f87ad84b625c8f1' \
  -X PATCH -d '{
  "plugins": {
    "limit-req": {
      "rate": 10,
      "burst": 5,
      "key_type": "var",
      "key": "remote_addr",
      "rejected_code": 429
    }
  }
}'

The rate limit takes effect immediately without restarting the gateway.

Related on TokRepo

• DevOps tools -- Infrastructure tools for API management and deployment.
• Monitoring tools -- Observability plugins that integrate with APISIX.

Common pitfalls

• The default admin API key is publicly known. Change it immediately in production by editing conf/config.yaml.
• etcd is a required dependency. If etcd becomes unavailable, APISIX continues serving with cached config but cannot accept new route changes.
• Custom Lua plugins run inside the NGINX worker process. CPU-intensive plugins can block request handling. Use external plugin runners for heavy computation.