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3scale API Management vs Tyk comparison

Red Hat and Tyk are both solutions in the API Management category. Red Hat is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.8, while Tyk is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0. Red Hat holds a 2.2% mindshare in APIM, compared to Tyk’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Tyk users who would recommend it.
3scale API Management
Read 11 3scale API Management reviews
  • 3,678 Views
  • 2,727 Comparison Views
91% willing to recommend
Tyk
Read 6 Tyk reviews
  • 2,466 Views
  • 1,975 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

3scale API Management and Tyk are competing products in the API management category. Tyk appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and greater customization, despite the higher complexity in deployment.

Features: 3scale API Management offers comprehensive traffic management, developer portal availabilities, and excellent security features. Tyk provides open-source flexibility, advanced authentication options, and strong microservices support.

Room for Improvement: 3scale could enhance its initial setup costs and improve its support model to match community-driven alternatives. Tyk may benefit from simplifying its complex initial deployment process and strengthening its structural support models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: 3scale provides a straightforward deployment model with strong integration capabilities and reliable customer service. Tyk offers flexible deployment options, including on-premise and cloud solutions, but can be more complex to implement initially. Tyk's community-driven support model can be less consistent than more traditional support systems.

Pricing and ROI: 3scale API Management tends to have higher initial setup costs, offering strong ROI over time. Tyk often presents a more cost-effective model, with variable ROI outcomes based on deployment complexity and customization needs.

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To learn more, read our detailed 3scale API Management vs. Tyk Report (Updated: January 2025).
Buyer's Guide
3scale API Management vs. Tyk
January 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management
Ranking in API Management
17th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tyk
Ranking in API Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tyk is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Lightweight solution but less flexible customization features
It lacks some features, and the product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it. One disadvantage is that for customization, it uses liquid templates. However, not everyone is familiar with liquid templates, so if you want to do some customized logging or other tasks, you may need to struggle a lot. Other solutions like IBM API Connect or Apigee use JavaScript, which is more developer-friendly. That's what I found.
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MarkDoherty - PeerSpot reviewer
Fastest to get up and running and fewer idiosyncrasies than competitors
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them. But as a product, it's very difficult to find any major faults.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The gateway is the most valuable feature because it makes it possible for us to gather all traffic into one proxy, which is a good thing."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and security features."
"The product is stable."
"I like the API automation."
"It's good that they aren't adding a lot of features like ESP, etc. It's okay with just being a gateway."
"The standard deployment is very simple."
"3scale API Management's best feature is API management."
"To me, the most valuable feature of 3scale API Management is that it lets you add a backend to the product. I also like that you can integrate it well with OpenShift clusters, making 3scale API Management a useful solution."
More 3scale API Management pros
"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."
"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."
"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."
"It is a good product for API management."
"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."
"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful to improve the customization features so that the customer can do it based on their own needs."
"What was suggested by Red Hat was a crucial part of the configuration, but when we started to ask about the supportability of this configuration, Red Hat said only some parts of the configuration would be supported."
"3scale API Management only supports restful APIs and doesn't support SOAP."
"The product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it."
"We tried to use the portal, but we decided that it wasn't enough. The content management system (CMS) is not easy to use if you want to customize things, and it's hard to get someone who has the knowledge to work with the CMS."
"I believe the CMS part of it has room for improvement though. That is where you write a couple of things if you want to publish your API. It's based on liquid scripting, which doesn't seem like the obvious ones to script with."
"The user experience could be better. The developer portal is too complex and hard to configure."
"What I'd like to improve in 3scale API Management is its route-limiting feature. Currently, I don't know how to do that effectively on the solution, but in Kong, I know how to do it, so I would love to see route-limiting being easily done on 3scale API Management. It would also be good if there was some authentication that you could do from 3scale API Management because Kong offers that functionality out of the box. What I'd love to see in the next release of 3scale API Management is the ability to integrate more plug-ins easily onto the platform, so you'll be able to extend it, and even do customs management. If Red Hat could offer that extension where it allows the internal organization where 3scale API Management is deployed on-premise to integrate its tools on top of 3scale API Management and provide an API for that, that will make the solution very powerful."
"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."
"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."
"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."
"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."
"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."
"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost was around $45,000 per year."
"I don't think that 3scale is very expensive."
"The pricing is affordable, it's cheap."
"3scale API Management has reasonable pricing, judging from its competitor, Kong. My organization pays yearly for the 3scale API Management license, though I'm unable to give the exact figure because every single day there are new clusters deployed. I'm in charge of three to four clusters in my team, but give or take, it costs a few thousand lakhs."
"The cost curve is far smoother, both in terms of volume and the number of calls it's running on, compared to most competitors. So it's a tad more expensive at the very low end, but the curve is nothing like Apigee or some of the others."
"It had a free version, which suited many of our needs, but not all, but we were happy to go ahead with the licensed version as well, which is the paid version."
"There are different versions and plans available depending on the requirements, so there is flexibility in terms of the pricing."
"We are using the open-source version of this product, so there are no licensing costs for its use."
"The price is low compared to other products of a similar type."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
16%
Healthcare Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about 3scale API Management?
The product is stable.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?
I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
See all answers
What needs improvement with 3scale API Management?
The deployment process could be easier.
See all answers
What do you like most about Tyk?
The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tyk?
The pricing is actually quite competitive. In Azure environments, it gets beaten by Microsoft API Gateway, but on the other hand, it offers some features that Microsoft lacks. So it really comes do...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Tyk?
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly ...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs 3scale API Management Logo
Kong Gateway Enterprise vs 3scale API Management
Compared 16% of the time
Apigee vs 3scale API Management Logo
Apigee vs 3scale API Management
Compared 15% of the time
IBM API Connect vs 3scale API Management Logo
IBM API Connect vs 3scale API Management
Compared 14% of the time
Amazon API Gateway vs 3scale API Management Logo
Amazon API Gateway vs 3scale API Management
Compared 11% of the time
Apache APISIX vs 3scale API Management Logo
Apache APISIX vs 3scale API Management
Compared 3% of the time
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Apache APISIX vs Tyk Logo
Apache APISIX vs Tyk
Compared 17% of the time
Traefik Enterprise vs Tyk Logo
Traefik Enterprise vs Tyk
Compared 15% of the time
Apigee vs Tyk Logo
Apigee vs Tyk
Compared 10% of the time
Amazon API Gateway vs Tyk Logo
Amazon API Gateway vs Tyk
Compared 10% of the time
IBM DataPower Gateway vs Tyk Logo
IBM DataPower Gateway vs Tyk
Compared 4% of the time
More Tyk Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
API Management
December 2024
3scale API Management reportDownload 3scale API Management product report
Buyer's Guide
Tyk
December 2024
Tyk reportDownload Tyk product report
 

Learn More

Red Hat
Video not available
Tyk
 

Overview

3scale is an API management platform that delivers flexible, highly scalable solutions to package, distribute, control, and monetize your APIs, giving you the power to make the most of your API program.

  • Share company data, content, or services through Web or mobile applications.
  • Provide an API to external organizations, internal teams, or both.
  • Avoid the hassle and constant maintenance of building a solution from scratch.

3scale delivers centralized API management features through a distributed, cloud-hosted layer. The platform includes built-in features to help you build a more successful API program, including access control, rate limits, payment gateway integration, and developer experience tools.

Tyk is an open source API Gateway that is fast and scalable, an API management platform featuring an API gateway, analytics, developer portal and dashboard. Available in three flavours to best suit your architecture and governance. We offer full cloud or on-premises options, and the best of both worlds with our unique hybrid model. www.tyk.io
 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
Trip Advisor, Juniper Networks, AT&T
Buyer's Guide
3scale API Management vs. Tyk
January 2025
Free Report: 3scale API Management vs. Tyk
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