head to head · open source
Tyk vs agent-router
Tyk has 10,873 GitHub stars, 1,169 forks, 509 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agent-router has 2,334 stars, 445 forks, 300 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Tyk leads on adoption by 366% (10,873 vs 2,334 stars). Tyk is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence; agent-router is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Tyk has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, agent-router 19%. Tyk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (ai, ai-gateway, api-gateway, kubernetes), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Tyk | agent-router | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 445 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tyk if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick agent-router if
- You want the agent-router feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and agent-router fits your workflow better
About Tyk
Documentation Forum Blog About Tyk API Gateway Tyk Gateway is the cloud native, open source, enterprise ready API Gateway supporting REST, GraphQL, TCP and gRPC protocols. Built from the ground up, as the fastest API Gateway on the planet since 2014. Tyk Gateway is provided ‘Batteries included’, with no feature lockout. Enabling your organization to rate limit, auth, gather analytics, apply microservice patterns and more with ease. Tyk runs natively on Kubernetes , if you prefer, thanks to the Tyk Kubernetes Operator Everything you need to manage APIs. Follow the simple Get Started guide below 👇 The Enterprise…
About agent-router
The open source control plane for AI and agent traffic, powered by Envoy. An Agentic AI Foundation project. Formerly Envoy AI Gateway . Documentation · Quickstart · Blog · Release Notes · Talks Agent Router Agent Router gives application teams one consistent, OpenAI compatible API for every model and tool, from hosted providers to self hosted inference and MCP servers. Platform teams keep credentials, routing, quotas, failover, and usage attribution in one place, enforced by Envoy and Envoy Gateway. Agent Router controls. Envoy carries. Formerly Envoy AI Gateway Envoy AI Gateway is now Agent Router , an Agentic…
read the full agent-router overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tyk or agent-router more popular?
Tyk has 10,873 GitHub stars and agent-router has 2,334. Tyk has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tyk and agent-router free?
Both are open source. Tyk has no licence declared in this registry, and agent-router is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Tyk and agent-router?
Tyk is written in Go and agent-router in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Tyk or agent-router?
Choose Tyk if you want the larger community (10,873 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose agent-router if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.