NGINX has decided you’ll be migrating in the near future. From March 2026, it will deprecate its Ingress Controller. While existing deployments will continue to function, and installation artifacts will remain available, it’s a slippery downhill slope from March onwards. As NGINX puts it:
“There will be no further releases, no bugfixes, and no updates to resolve any security vulnerabilities that may be discovered.”
Ouch. If your cluster depends on NGINX’s Ingress Controller, you’re on borrowed time.
Thankfully, you have two ways forward with Tyk, both of which deliver clear benefits.
- Replace it fast
If you’re after a low-risk, fast migration, we’ve got you. You can swap the NGINX Ingress Controller for Tyk’s Ingress mode. Doing this means you can:
- Keep your Ingress YAML
- Change the Ingress class
- Deploy Tyk Gateway and Tyk Operator
Speedy, simple, secure. Learn how to use Tyk Operator as an Ingress Controller to manage your API traffic in Kubernetes here.
This’ll carry over your basic proxy routing – you’ll need to map any additional gateway rules stored via annotations, such as mTLS, to Tyk via API definition.
- Upgrade your architecture
You have to migrate anyway, so why not use this as an opportunity to lay stronger foundations for a better future? You can stop using Ingress to define APIs and use Custom Resource Definitions (CRD) to do so instead.
When you migrate to using Tyk Gateway to define API Proxies with Tyk CRDs/OpenAPI, you don’t just replace routing – you gain a whole heap of benefits:
- Store your proxies in the API best practice standard – OpenAPI Specification
- Authorisation and authentication options that make robust security simple (JWT, OIDC, mTLS, API keys)
- Flexible rate limit and quota options to help you safeguard against abuse, overload, and denial-of-service attacks
- Powerful security and governance policies for efficient, consistent management at scale
- Pricing plans that fit your API journey and don’t penalize your business for growth
- Detailed analytics that enable you to log, measure and trace efficiently for faster troubleshooting, slowdown prevention, improved end-user experiences and better business decisions
- API versioning that delivers flexibility and stability, for superior transition management
- Secure, flexible API governance designed to support innovation at scale while helping you streamline compliance
By upgrading your architecture with Tyk Gateway, you move from just routing traffic with the NGINX Ingress Controller to building a real API platform that’s future-ready in every sense.
We have a quick-start repo to help you migrate from Ingress to CRD here.
Your NGINX Ingress Controller retirement solution
NGINX is forcing your hand – but that doesn’t have to be a negative. Whether you go for the speedy route of replacing the dead Ingress Controller with Tyk’s Ingress mode or take the chance to build a powerful API platform, you business stands to gain.
Chat with our team to find out more or dive in and enjoy a free trial to see for yourself how easy things can be.
