# Tyk — Open Source API Gateway with Developer Portal

> Tyk is a Go-based API gateway with plugins, rate limiting, OAuth2/OIDC, GraphQL federation, and a built-in developer portal — packaged as a single binary or full Kubernetes operator.

## Install

Save in your project root:

# Tyk — Open Source API Gateway with Developer Portal

## Quick Use
```bash
# Spin up Tyk + Redis with the community Docker Compose stack
git clone https://github.com/TykTechnologies/tyk-gateway-docker
cd tyk-gateway-docker
docker compose up -d

# Register an API
curl -X POST localhost:8080/tyk/apis 
  -H "x-tyk-authorization: 352d20ee67be67f6340b4c0605b044b7" 
  -H "content-type: application/json" 
  -d @apidef.json

# Hot-reload config
curl localhost:8080/tyk/reload/group 
  -H "x-tyk-authorization: 352d20ee67be67f6340b4c0605b044b7"
```

## Introduction
Tyk is a high-performance open source API gateway written in Go. It offers quota enforcement, rate limiting, auth (OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, HMAC, mTLS), transformations, analytics, and a developer portal — all as either a standalone gateway, a Docker deployment, or a Kubernetes-native operator. Over 10,000 GitHub stars and a decade of production use across banks, telcos, and public sector APIs.

## What Tyk Does
- Terminates and routes API traffic to upstream services with per-route policies.
- Enforces rate limits, quotas, and circuit breakers using Redis for distributed counters.
- Authenticates clients via OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, HMAC, mTLS, custom auth plugins, or keyless modes.
- Federates GraphQL schemas from multiple upstreams (Universal Data Graph) alongside REST.
- Serves a developer portal for API discovery, signup, docs, and key issuance.

## Architecture Overview
Tyk is a Go binary that sits between clients and upstream services, reading API definitions from either a local file, a Redis-backed store, or the Tyk Dashboard. Each request flows through a middleware chain: auth → rate limit → transform → cache → dispatch → response transform. Plugins can be written in Go, Python, JavaScript, Lua, or gRPC for cross-language middleware. The dashboard (commercial, but free for <= 5 users) is optional; the gateway is fully functional with just Redis. Kubernetes deployments use the Tyk Operator to reconcile API and Policy CRDs.

## Self-Hosting & Configuration
- Run `tyk-gateway` as a Docker container or systemd service; pair with Redis (required) and optionally MongoDB/Postgres for analytics.
- Configure APIs via JSON definitions in `/opt/tyk-gateway/apps/` or through the dashboard UI/REST API.
- Deploy on Kubernetes with the official Helm chart and Tyk Operator; APIs become `ApiDefinition` CRDs.
- Extend via native Go plugins (compile into the gateway), JS middleware (hot-reloaded), or gRPC plugins (any language).
- Enable OpenTelemetry tracing in `tyk.conf` to get full request traces across upstream hops.

## Key Features
- Multi-protocol: REST, GraphQL (incl. federation), gRPC, WebSocket, TCP, and SOAP.
- Plugin system in five languages covers 95% of customization needs without forking.
- Built-in developer portal with self-service signup, key management, and OAS-rendered docs.
- Native Kubernetes operator syncs Git-managed API configs with cluster state.
- Open source gateway is full-featured; the dashboard is the only paid tier.

## Comparison with Similar Tools
- **Kong Gateway** — Lua/OpenResty-based; similar feature surface, plugin ecosystem larger, Tyk has better multi-protocol.
- **Apache APISIX** — OpenResty-based, newer, strong dynamic routing; Tyk wins on multi-language plugins.
- **KrakenD** — stateless aggregation gateway; lighter but no developer portal.
- **Envoy + istio** — powerful L7 proxy; best for service mesh, needs more ops investment.
- **AWS API Gateway** — managed, vendor-locked; Tyk gives parity on your own infra.

## FAQ
**Q:** Do I need the dashboard?
A: No — every feature can be driven via the gateway REST API and config files. The dashboard is UX sugar.

**Q:** How are plugins deployed?
A: Go plugins compile into the gateway; JS/Lua/Python/gRPC plugins load at runtime from a configured path or gRPC endpoint.

**Q:** Does Tyk scale horizontally?
A: Yes — Redis synchronizes counters and tokens across gateway replicas. Stick behind any L4 LB.

**Q:** What is the license?
A: Mozilla Public License 2.0 for the gateway; the dashboard and portal ship under a commercial license with a generous free tier.

## Sources
- https://github.com/TykTechnologies/tyk
- https://tyk.io/docs/

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Source: https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/9d870738-3908-11f1-9bc6-00163e2b0d79
Author: AI Open Source