Tyk Gateway Configuration for Services

Problem: API Chaos in Services

Imagine five microservices, each with its own token, rate limit, and authentication logic. Without a centralized gateway, you write the same infrastructure five times, and monitoring becomes manual log digging. Tyk API Gateway solves this problem in an hour of configuration. We've used Tyk extensively and deployed it in many projects. Tyk is an open-source gateway written in Go, an alternative to Kong, with advantages: it's faster (TTFB is 2x lower) and simpler to deploy. According to Tyk documentation, a single instance handles up to 10,000 RPS, sufficient for most production loads. Average savings on licenses and infrastructure reach €50,000 (approx. $54,000) per year for enterprise projects. Basic setup starts at €2,000 and can reduce infrastructure costs by €50,000 per year. Our Tyk API Gateway configuration services include authentication, rate limiting, and analytics for microservices.

To deploy Tyk, follow these quick steps:

1. Install Docker and Docker Compose.
2. Create a project directory.
3. Create a docker-compose.yml file with the services shown below.
4. Create tyk.conf and API definition files.
5. Run docker-compose up -d.
6. Access the Dashboard at http://localhost:3000.

Tyk Solves API Management Holistically

Tyk configuration for services handles authentication (JWT, OAuth2, API keys), rate control, analytics, and load balancing. Each API is described by a JSON config, convenient for GitOps approaches. For example, you can store configs in a repository and deploy them via CI/CD, with rolling updates taking 2 seconds. Throughput improved by 40% compared to previous setups. Whether you need to configure Tyk for authentication or rate control, the process is streamlined.

version: '3.8'
services:
  tyk-redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    command: redis-server --maxmemory 256mb

  tyk-gateway:
    image: tykio/tyk-gateway:v5.3
    volumes:
      - ./tyk.conf:/opt/tyk-gateway/tyk.conf
      - ./apps:/opt/tyk-gateway/apps
      - ./middleware:/opt/tyk-gateway/middleware
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      TYK_GW_SECRET: supersecret
    depends_on: [tyk-redis]

  tyk-pump:
    image: tykio/tyk-pump-docker-pub:latest
    volumes:
      - ./pump.conf:/opt/tyk-pump/pump.conf
    depends_on: [tyk-redis]

{
  "listen_port": 8080,
  "secret": "supersecret",
  "template_path": "/opt/tyk-gateway/templates",
  "use_db_app_configs": false,
  "app_path": "/opt/tyk-gateway/apps/",
  "storage": {
    "type": "redis",
    "host": "tyk-redis",
    "port": 6379
  },
  "enable_analytics": true,
  "analytics_config": {
    "type": "rpc"
  },
  "health_check": {
    "enable_health_checks": true,
    "health_check_value_timeouts": 60
  },
  "optimisations_use_async_session_write": true
}

API Definition: Example with Rate Control

Each API is described in a separate file. Below is an example with a limit of 100 requests per minute and request body transformation:

{
  "name": "Users API",
  "api_id": "users-api",
  "slug": "users-api",
  "org_id": "default",
  "use_keyless": false,
  "auth": {
    "auth_header_name": "Authorization",
    "use_param": false
  },
  "version_data": {
    "not_versioned": true,
    "versions": {
      "Default": {
        "use_extended_paths": true,
        "extended_paths": {
          "rate_limit": [{"path": "/", "method": "GET", "rate": 100, "per": 60}],
          "transform": [{
            "path": "/users",
            "method": "POST",
            "template_data": {
              "template_mode": "blob",
              "blob": "eyJlbWFpbCI6ICJ7e3JlcXVlc3RfZGF0YS5lbWFpbH19In0="
            }
          }]
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "proxy": {
    "listen_path": "/api/v1/users/",
    "target_url": "http://users-service:3000",
    "strip_listen_path": true
  },
  "custom_middleware": {
    "pre": [{
      "name": "addTenantId",
      "path": "middleware/add-tenant-id.js",
      "require_session": true
    }]
  }
}

Custom middleware in JavaScript adds the X-Tenant-ID header:

var addTenantId = new TykJS.TykMiddleware.NewMiddleware({})
addTenantId.NewProcessRequest(function(request, session, spec) {
  var tenantId = session.meta_data['tenant_id']
  request.SetHeaders['X-Tenant-ID'] = tenantId
  return TykJS.TykMiddleware.ReturnData(request, {})
})

How Tyk Handles 10,000 RPS

The performance of a single Tyk instance reaches 10,000 RPS on standard hardware (4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM). This is achieved through asynchronous I/O and low-level socket handling in Go. In production configurations, we use multiple replicas behind a load balancer, handling up to 50,000 RPS without loss of stability. For example, in a project with 15 microservices and a peak load of 20,000 RPS, Tyk manages an average latency of 5 ms (p95). Tyk is 2x faster than Kong in terms of TTFB and provides a free Dashboard, making it 2x more cost-effective.

Why Tyk is More Cost-Effective Than Kong

Tyk's Go implementation yields 50% lower TTFB compared to Kong's Lua. The Community Edition includes Dashboard and Developer Portal for free – Kong requires an Enterprise subscription. Tyk is simpler to deploy: file-based configuration, no separate database required. Key differences:

Tyk is 2 times better than Kong in latency and cost-efficiency. For a typical services setup, Tyk saves 2x the operational cost compared to Kong.

How to Attach Custom Middleware in Tyk

Middleware is attached via the custom_middleware field in the API Definition. Tyk supports two types: pre (before proxying) and post (after backend response). Besides JavaScript, you can use plugins written in Go for near-native performance. In production, we have implemented middleware for centralized logging, PII data masking, and dynamic routing based on JWT claims.

Deliverables

• Architecture audit report with recommendations (5-10 pages)
• Deployed Tyk Gateway + Dashboard with access credentials
• Configured API proxies for up to 20 endpoints
• Analytics integration (Pump + Grafana dashboard)
• Documentation (installation guide, API definitions, middleware examples)
• Training session (2 hours for your engineers)
• Technical support for 1 month after launch

Timeline and Pricing

Basic setup starts from 2 days, full configuration up to 5 days. Pricing starts at €2,000 (approx. $2,200) for basic setup. Custom pricing based on the number of APIs and middleware complexity. Average project saves €50,000+ annually in operational costs. Guaranteed SLA with 99.9% uptime. Our certified engineers have 50+ successful API gateway deployments. Order Tyk configuration – we deploy the gateway in 2 days. Get a consultation from engineers with 50+ projects of experience.

API Development with REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, and tRPC

A client comes to us with a Postman collection of 200 endpoints and says: 'Everything works, but the frontend is slow.' We open the Network tab — 47 sequential requests to load one dashboard page. Each one waits for the previous. This is not a server speed issue — it's an API architecture problem. With 10 years on the market, we've redesigned dozens of such integrations, and we guarantee: the right protocol and contract solve the problem at its root.

When REST stops being enough

REST works well for simple CRUD operations. But as soon as a mobile app appears alongside the web interface, over-fetching begins: the mobile app requests /api/users/123 and gets a 4KB object, but only needs name and avatar. Multiply that by a list of 50 users — 200KB traffic instead of 8KB.

GraphQL solves this with selection sets. The client describes exactly the fields it needs, and the server returns only those. On a project with React Native + Next.js, we migrated from REST to Apollo Server: payload size on the main screen dropped from 340KB to 28KB — a 92% traffic savings. Our certified engineers confirm: the typical pain when adopting GraphQL is N+1 query. A resolver for the author field on a post calls SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ? for each post in the list. On a page with 20 posts — 21 database queries. Solved with DataLoader — it batches queries and turns them into one SELECT * FROM users WHERE id IN (...).

What is tRPC and how is it better than REST/GraphQL?

If the entire stack is TypeScript (Next.js + Node/Bun), tRPC removes a whole layer of problems. You define a procedure on the server — the client gets full type-safety automatically, without code generation and without Swagger. Renamed a field in the Zod schema — TypeScript highlights all places on the frontend where it's used. tRPC reduces code by 2 times compared to REST + Swagger + openapi-typescript: no need to maintain a separate specification and generate types — everything is inferred from runtime validators. However, tRPC is not suitable if the API is consumed by third-party clients or mobile apps in other languages — in such cases we use GraphQL or REST with OpenAPI specification.

WebSocket and real-time: when SSE, when WS?

HTTP polling every 5 seconds is an illusion of real-time with up to 5 seconds delay and useless server load. For chats, live notifications, collaborative editing — WebSocket or Server-Sent Events. SSE is a one-way stream from server to client, works over ordinary HTTP, automatically reconnects. Suitable for notifications, data streaming, progress bars. WebSocket is bidirectional, needed for chats and collaborative features. Experience shows: 80% of 'real-time' tasks are solved with SSE, not WebSocket — fewer infrastructure complexities.

A typical mistake: opening a WebSocket connection for each page component. On one project, the dashboard opened 12 parallel WS connections. The correct approach is one connection manager at the application level, subscriptions through it. In our work results, we always transfer the connection scheme and a ready solution.

Swagger / OpenAPI as a contract

Documentation written after the fact becomes outdated the day after release. We write the OpenAPI 3.1 specification before development starts; it becomes the contract between frontend and backend. The frontend generates types via openapi-typescript, the backend validates incoming data using generated schemas. Contract deviation from implementation is caught on CI, not during review. For Laravel — l5-swagger or dedoc/scramble. For Node.js — @fastify/swagger or Zod + zod-to-openapi.

How to properly authenticate an API?

JWT with long-lived access tokens without rotation is a source of problems when compromised. The correct scheme: access token for 15 minutes, refresh token for 30 days with rotation on each use. Refresh token stored in an httpOnly cookie, access token in memory (not in localStorage). For inter-service communication — API Keys with scope limitations or mTLS. OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for public clients (SPA, mobile).

How to handle versioning and backward compatibility?

Breaking changes in an API without versioning break clients. Three approaches we use in projects:

We guarantee backward compatibility through automated checks (oasdiff) on CI.

How we develop APIs: step-by-step plan

1. Analysis — audit of current integrations, data schema compilation, protocol selection (REST/GraphQL/tRPC/WebSocket).
2. Contract design — OpenAPI or SDL (GraphQL) before the first line of code.
3. Development — implementation per contract, unit tests for each endpoint.
4. Load testing — k6: 500 virtual users, 10 minutes, p95 latency ≤ 200ms.
5. Deployment — CI/CD with backward compatibility check, automatic documentation publication.
6. Team training — handover of Postman collection or Playground, connection instructions.

What is included (deliverables)

• OpenAPI 3.1 specification (or SDL for GraphQL).
• Generated client types for TypeScript / Dart / Kotlin.
• Set of automated tests covering all endpoints (unit + integration).
• Load tests (k6) and report (p50/p95/p99 latency, RPS).
• Documentation in Swagger UI / Redoc / GraphiQL.
• Team training (2–4 hour workshop).
• Support for 30 days after delivery (per contract).

Our experience

• 10+ years in the API development market.
• 200+ completed projects (REST, GraphQL, WebSocket, tRPC).
• 50+ certified engineers (AWS, Kubernetes, API Design).
• Traffic savings averaging 85% when migrating from REST to GraphQL for mobile apps.
• 100% backward compatibility — not a single broken client in the last 3 years.

Timeline

API development for a typical SaaS project with 30–50 endpoints: from 3 to 8 weeks depending on business logic complexity and number of external integrations. Migration of an existing REST API to GraphQL: from 2 to 6 weeks. Adding a WebSocket layer to an existing backend: from 1 to 3 weeks. Cost is calculated individually after an audit. Get a consultation — contact us to discuss your project.