# API Gateways

API Gateways are the critical entry point to your services.
They manage authentication, routing, rate-limiting, observability, and security at the edge of your infrastructure.
In modern architectures—especially microservices and serverless platforms—the API Gateway is the first line of defence and performance optimisation.

With **Unikraft Cloud**, API Gateways gain advantage from a microVM-based, scale-to-zero infrastructure that delivers the performance of specialised systems with the flexibility of serverless deployment.

## Why run an API gateway on Unikraft Cloud

### ⚡ Ultra-low latency

MicroVMs remove the overhead of general-purpose operating systems by compiling only the required OS components alongside the API Gateway app.
This results in:

* Single-digit-millisecond cold-start times (perfect for bursty API traffic).
* Minimal memory footprint, allowing more requests per node.
* Consistent, predictable response latency at scale.

### 🛡️ Secure by design

The open internet exposes API Gateways, making them often the most attacked component.
Unikraft Cloud isolates each instance at the virtual machine level while keeping footprint minimal:

* Immutable, single-purpose microVM images reduce attack surface.
* Strong VM-level isolation without container overhead.
* Built-in memory safety and image signing to ensure trust at deployment.

### 💸 Scale-to-zero economics

Traffic to APIs often fluctuates—peaking during business hours, quiet overnight, and spiking during product launches.
Traditional gateway clusters waste resources when idle.
With Unikraft Cloud:

* API Gateways scale-to-zero when not in use, reducing idle costs to **zero**.
* Instant cold-starts ensure gateways are ready in milliseconds when traffic resumes.
* Fine-grained billing: pay only for requests and runtime, not for idle VMs.

### 🔄 Serverless-ready

API Gateways are a natural control point for serverless workloads.
Running them on Unikraft Cloud enables:

* On-demand routing to serverless functions.
* Dynamic policy enforcement per request without worrying about idle nodes.
* Lightweight integration with edge compute for global distribution.


## Getting started

API Gateways on Unikraft Cloud combine VM-grade security with serverless agility.
Ultra-fast, cost-efficient, and scale-to-zero—so your API edge is always ready, never idle.

This guide shows you how to use [Tyk](https://tyk.io/), a universal API management tool for Representational State Transfer (REST), GraphQL, gRPC and async APIs.
It offers open standards, scalability, governance, and AI-ready features for API development, security, and performance.

To run it, follow these steps:

1. Install the [`kraft` CLI tool](https://unikraft.org/docs/cli/install) and a container runtime engine (for example, [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/)).

1. Clone the [`examples` repository](https://github.com/unikraft-cloud/examples) and `cd` into the `examples/tyk/` directory:

```bash title=""
git clone https://github.com/unikraft-cloud/examples
cd examples/tyk/
```

Make sure to log into Unikraft Cloud and pick a [metro](/platform/metros) close to you.
This guide uses `fra` (Frankfurt, 🇩🇪):

<CodeTabs syncKey="cli-tool">

```bash title="kraft"
# Set Unikraft Cloud access token
export UKC_TOKEN=token
# Set metro to Frankfurt, DE
export UKC_METRO=fra
```

</CodeTabs>

Then invoke:

<CodeTabs>

```bash title="kraft"
kraft cloud compose up
```

</CodeTabs>

After deploying, you can query the service using the provided address.
Use the `/hello` path after the address, such as below:

```bash title=""
curl https://<service-fqdn>/hello | jq
```
```json title=""
{
  "status": "pass",
  "version": "v5.3.0-dev",
  "description": "Tyk GW",
  "details": {
    "redis": {
      "status": "pass",
      "componentType": "datastore",
      "time": "2024-04-30T10:37:29Z"
    }
  }
}
```

## Learn more

Use the `--help` option for detailed information on using Unikraft Cloud:

<CodeTabs syncKey="cli-tool">

```bash title="kraft"
kraft cloud --help
```

</CodeTabs>

Or visit the [CLI Reference](/docs/cli/unikraft) or the [legacy CLI reference](/docs/cli/kraft/overview).