Comparison

Kong Gateway vs Tyk

On the evidence we track, Tyk leads this comparison with a composite score of 55/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Kong Gateway49
Tyk55
Score
Vioscale score
Kong Gateway49 / 100high · 76%
Tyk55 / 100high · 75%
Pricing
Free tier
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Model
Kong Gatewaycommercial
Price level
Kong Gatewaylow
Tyklow
Transparent
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Integrations
Count
Kong Gateway11
Tyk5
Reliability
Status page
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Adoption
Dependent repos
Kong Gateway1
Tyk35
Github stars
Kong Gateway44,043
Activity
Commits last 30d
Kong Gateway1
Tyk29
Release
Cadence days
Kong Gateway29
Tyk10
History
Kong Gateway20 items
License
Spdx
Kong GatewayApache-2.0
Tyk
Language
Primary
Kong GatewayLua
TykGo

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for api gateways. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Hosting
Kong GatewayCloud + self-hosted
TykCloud + self-hosted
Kubernetes-native
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Traffic
Rate limiting
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Request/response transformation
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Security
OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Mutual TLS
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Protocols
GraphQL gateway
Kong Gateway-
Tyk
gRPC support
Kong Gateway-
Tyk
Delivery
Developer portal
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Monetization
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Ecosystem
Plugin ecosystem
Kong GatewayExtensive
TykLimited
Insight
Observability
Kong Gateway
Tyk

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Kong Gateway

Kong provides a unified platform for building, testing, and governing APIs and AI agents. It handles both traditional API gateway functions—routing, rate limiting, authentication—and modern AI-specific concerns like token budgeting, context management, and LLM traffic control. Includes gateway, API management, testing tools, and event streaming capabilities.

Independently observed

Tyk

Leader

An open-source, self-hosted or cloud-managed API gateway and management platform that provides centralized governance, rate limiting, authentication, PII protection, and observability for APIs and AI agent traffic across multiple protocols and deployment modes.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Kong Gateway

SubscriptionFree tier
as of verify ↗

Tyk

Leader
SubscriptionFree tier
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Kong Gateway
Tyk
CLI
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Self-hosted
Kong Gateway
Tyk
Hybrid
Kong Gateway
Tyk

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (1)
  • Kubernetes

Kong Gateway

11 total - 10 not shared
  • AWS Bedrock
  • Azure Content Safety
  • Google Cloud Model Armor
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Llama 3
  • Helm
  • Git
  • Stripe
  • Twilio
Independently observed

Tyk

Leader
8 total - 7 not shared
  • OpenAPI
  • OpenTelemetry
  • GraphQL
  • Docker
  • OpenAPI/Swagger
  • Kafka
  • MQTT
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.