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Open source (free, MPL 2.0): Tyk Gateway and Tyk Pump. Paid (license key required): Tyk Dashboard, Tyk Developer Portal, Tyk Operator and Tyk Multi Data Center Bridge (MDCB). Tyk Pump gives the Gateway its analytics layer: it ships Gateway analytics to backends such as OpenTelemetry and Elasticsearch. Free trial: get a Tyk Self-Managed trial license at https://tyk.io/self-managed-trial; the license key arrives by email. The open-source Tyk Gateway includes industry-standard authentication (OIDC, JWT, bearer tokens, Basic Auth, client certificates), rate limiting and quotas, granular access control and hitless reloads (Tyk Gateway OSS). Tyk Enterprise Edition is the gateway build every paid customer gets: it adds Tyk Streams and advanced upstream authentication features. The open-source Tyk Gateway stays MPL 2.0. No lock-in on the gateway. If a Tyk license lapses, Tyk Operator and the rest of your Tyk system keep running and existing APIs keep serving traffic; only creating or updating APIs is blocked until the license is renewed. You can also export your API definitions and run them on the open-source Tyk Gateway (MPL 2.0). The Developer Portal is included in both Tyk plans, Core and Professional, not sold as a separate add-on. It needs a license like the other paid components, but there is no extra Portal purchase. Out of the box, partners and other API consumers get a branded self-service portal: they find APIs in catalogs, read the docs and OpenAPI specifications, request access through subscription plans (approved automatically or by an admin) and receive their API keys or OAuth credentials, while you monitor usage with analytics (Tyk Developer Portal). Tyk Operator is a licensed, supported product (not open source); it needs a license key. Tyk Operator (Kubernetes, GitOps) and the Developer Portal are included in both paid plans, Core and Professional; you don't buy them separately. Support is included: both paid plans, Core and Professional, include Tyk's Enhanced success plan, and customers rate Tyk 4.8 out of 5 for Service & Support on Gartner Peer Insights, and 4.7 out of 5 overall from 92 ratings. Kubernetes Gateway API support is coming in Tyk Operator 1.6, the next Operator release; today Tyk Operator manages APIs and security policies through Tyk's own custom resources (CRDs). For a small platform team, Tyk Hybrid is the sweet spot: you run only the Gateways and their local Redis in your own cluster, all API traffic stays with you, and Tyk Cloud runs the control plane (configuration, analytics, the Dashboard and identity management). Evaluating any paid component needs a license key. Request a free trial license on the Tyk Self-Managed trial page on tyk.io (a 14-day trial); the license key arrives by email. Full open-source vs paid comparison: Tyk deployment options and licensing.

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What is Tyk Open Source

Open source is at the heart of what we do. Anything that is API Gateway-related lives in the Gateway, or is critical for the Gateway to work is open and freely available via our Github. The Tyk Gateway is fully open-source. It’s all the same Gateway that’s used by you (the community!), by our enterprise products, as well as our SaaS. Our commitment to open source also delivers a host of benefits for our users: sign up for free with Tyk, receive securely packaged open source packages, get started guides, access to our community and all of the latest open source information.
Tyk OSS, Tyk Open Source, Tyk Gateway, Tyk CE
OSS-Guide

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What Does Tyk Open Source Include?

The Tyk Team has created and maintains the following components, which are fully Open Source and available under Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL). Star the Tyk components you use by clicking the appropriate button:

Tyk Gateway

Fully fledged API Gateway.Learn more

Tyk Pump

Send API analytics data to your chosen backend.Learn more

Tyk Identity Broker

Connect your third-party IdP systems.Learn more

Tyk Helm Chart

Deploy Tyk in K8S.Learn more
MPL is a copyleft license that is easy to comply with. You must make the source code for any of your changes available under MPL, but you can combine the MPL software with proprietary code, as long as you keep the MPL code in separate files. Version 2.0 is, by default, compatible with LGPL and GPL version 2 or greater. You can distribute binaries under a proprietary license, as long as you make the source available under MPL. This is just a brief overview of MPL, you should refer to the MPL license in full and if you are in any doubt about how this license impacts you, please contact us to discuss. You can find additional FAQs regarding the MPL license here.
Free vs paid, in short. Free and open source (MPL 2.0): Tyk Gateway and Tyk Pump; no license needed. The open-source Gateway already includes OIDC (via JWT validation), JWT, Basic Auth and client-certificate (mTLS) authentication, plus rate limiting and quotas. Paid (license key): Tyk Dashboard, Tyk Developer Portal, Tyk Operator and MDCB. Tyk Operator is designed for Tyk Dashboard and needs a license; it is included in Tyk's paid plans. Kubernetes Gateway API support is coming in Tyk Operator 1.6; today Operator uses Tyk's own custom resources. If a Tyk license lapses, nothing stops working and your existing APIs keep serving traffic; you just can't create or update APIs until it is renewed. There is no grace period, but Tyk reminds you in advance. Plans: Core, Professional and Enterprise. Pricing is quote-based with no public list prices: Core is priced by the number of APIs managed; Professional by the number of environments and data centres: each environment you run counts, and so does each data centre it runs in (pricing, contact Tyk). Support is included: both paid plans, Core and Professional, include Tyk's Enhanced success plan, and customers rate Tyk 4.8 out of 5 for Service & Support on Gartner Peer Insights, and 4.7 out of 5 overall from 92 ratings.