Tyk vs Apollo – evaluating API management alternative

Have you come across Apollo in your hunt for the right API management solution for your business? Or perhaps you’re using it already? Either way, it’s time to talk about Tyk. If you’re not using Apollo yet, Tyk’s Universal Data Graph will provide everything you need. And if you’re already using Apollo, you can add Tyk to make your environment production ready…

Let’s start with the fundamentals.

Read on to discover how much you could gain.

 

Feature Benefit Tyk Apollo
Easy adoption Built with developers in mind, so easy to adopt and use.
Self-serve trial for enterprise Install and use the product at your leisure, to be sure it fully meets your needs before you implement it.
Supports GraphQL federation with subscriptions (coming soon) Enables the easy translation of existing services and data sources into GraphQL APIs.
Next generation service orchestration engine
(Universal Data Graph) Adopt GraphQL immediately with no code and add additional data sources at will. Supporting your business into the future.
World’s first GraphQL
developer portal Developer-driven solutions that are modern, lightweight and
cloud native.
Easy scalability for
microservice stacks Clear, efficient setups that are easy to create and use
All Gateway features available
out-of-the box Fast, easy implementation – a better experience overall.
Native support for Kubernetes, with an Operator that allows you to manage your GraphQL APIs through the Kubernetes API Reliable, powerful and secure API management for
Kubernetes environments.
Lightweight, ultra-performant, low overhead, cloud native gateway Delivers efficient API management, without piling extra layers onto your existing stack and adding complexity.
Extensibility in any language,
not just Lua or JS Implement without changing your architecture or ways of working, thanks to built-in flexibility.
Licence cost not tied to usage Fixed fee self-managed licences avoid “per API call” costs, meaning lower expenditure for your business, no matter how much you scale.

1. GraphQL expertise

Tyk
Next-level GraphQL expertise
Apollo
Solid credentials but adds complexity

Apollo was the industry standard-bearer for GraphQL. It allows you to do everything you need to adopt GraphQL, from developing APIs to consuming them and federating/serving them up.

Tyk takes this to the next level. We cut out the messy federation process and remove the requirement for you to write all the resolvers yourself. The result? GraphQL expertise at your fingertips without adding an extra service layer to your stack.

Tyk is easier to use and delivers blistering performance.

2. Scalability

Tyk
Scale with confidence
Apollo
Great for small projects

How do you plan to scale your microservices?

Tyk’s advanced Universal Data Graph provides ultimate flexibility. This next-gen solution integrates your existing services into a single, GraphQL-enabled endpoint. Simple. Powerful. Highly scalable.

Apollo’s federation-based approach gets complicated fast. It means you have to add in a whole new service layer or go for a rewrite.

3. Manage, don’t just create

Tyk
Full lifecycle GraphQL API management
Apollo
Great for writing GraphQL services

Apollo is the market leader when it comes to writing GraphQL services. However, when it comes to managing your APIs and getting the best out of them, it’s Tyk’s time to shine.

If you’re doing GraphQL, you’ll need an API management layer eventually. With Tyk, you get everything you need, straight out of the box.

4. Powerful security

Tyk
Secure, flexible, scalable
Apollo
Harder to scale

Do you always want to redeploy the whole stack if you change a security policy? What if you need the flexibility to expose the same API to different groups of users? How do you model this with a single annotated schema?

Answer: with Tyk.

Tyk delivers powerful security that scales with your business, as part of our full lifecycle API management solution.

5. Flexible API exposure

Tyk
Easily limit the schema of the upstream service
Apollo
Stand up a whole new server

Tyk makes it easy for you to manage the difference between internal and external use cases for your services. Our GraphQL proxy lets you limit the schema of the upstream service. It’s simple, flexible and effective, with no need for a whole new server or new resolvers.

6. No-code solutions

Tyk
Can be implemented with no coding
Apollo
Relies heavily on code-based solutions

With Apollo, you have to write everything in NodeJS. Developers use their OSS libraries to write the GraphQL server, which itself is a bridge to their other services (REST, database, etc.). This means every service needs to be re-created in a GraphQL representation inside the GraphQL server to make it work.

That sounds like a lot of work to us. With Tyk’s Universal Data Graph, you can simply stitch together all of your disparate data from multiple sources. Use the Tyk GUI to turn it into a single API. No new code, services or infrastructure required.

7. Performance

Tyk
Outstanding performance
Apollo
Reasonable performance

The Tyk API Gateway and Universal Data Graph are fast. Incredibly fast.

We’re known for our blistering performance and low latency, so if performance is your priority, it’s time to talk to Tyk.

8. Support for polyglot ecosystems

Tyk
Seamless adoption
Apollo
Layered complexity

If you use REST and other APIs in your stack, you’ll need an API Gateway. Tyk’s GraphQL features allow for seamless adoption without the ‘switching costs.’ Why? Because there’s no switch – just organic adoption and transparent access.

Trusted by leading businesses.
Loved by their engineers.

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Learn more about the
advantages of using Tyk

VS. icon
The battle of the open source API gateways.
VS. icon
Eight reasons to choose Tyk.
API lifecycle
Connect, build, and control. Full API lifecycle management made easy.
UDG
Stitch all of your services into a single GraphQL endpoint, using the Tyk GUI.
mashery
Discover our cost-effective, highly performant alternative that comes with outstanding support
Price
Affordable, cloud-native API management, installed on your own servers, the cloud, or as a multi-cloud SaaS.

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