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Kong vs Tyk Cloud: What are the differences?
Kong: Open Source Microservice & API Management Layer. Kong is a scalable, open source API Layer (also known as an API Gateway, or API Middleware). Kong controls layer 4 and 7 traffic and is extended through Plugins, which provide extra functionality and services beyond the core platform; Tyk Cloud: Open Source API Management. Tyk is a lightweight, open source API Gateway and enables you to control who accesses your API, when they access it and how they access it. Tyk will also record detailed analytics on how your users are interacting with your API and when things go wrong.
Kong can be classified as a tool in the "Microservices Tools" category, while Tyk Cloud is grouped under "API Tools".
Some of the features offered by Kong are:
- Logging: Log requests and responses to your system over TCP, UDP or to disk
- OAuth2.0: Add easily an OAuth2.0 authentication to your APIs
- Monitoring: Live monitoring provides key load and performance server metrics
On the other hand, Tyk Cloud provides the following key features:
- API Management Dashboard
- API Analytics
- API Developer Portal
"Easy to maintain" is the primary reason why developers consider Kong over the competitors, whereas "Full featured" was stated as the key factor in picking Tyk Cloud.
Kong and Tyk Cloud are both open source tools. It seems that Kong with 22.4K GitHub stars and 2.75K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Tyk Cloud with 4.6K GitHub stars and 616 GitHub forks.
Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.
Pros of Kong
- Easy to maintain37
- Easy to install32
- Flexible26
- Great performance21
- Api blueprint6
- Custom Plugins4
- Kubernetes-native3
- Security2
- Has a good plugin infrastructure2
- Agnostic2
- Load balancing1
- Documentation is clear1
- Very customizable1
Pros of Tyk Cloud
- Full featured10
- Easy to install5
- Great Performance5
- Flexible4
- Easy to use2
- Better Oauth integration2
- Good value2
- Great support & advice1