Amazon API Gateway
Fully managed service to create, publish, and secure APIs at any scale for backend access
Janus
Lightweight Go‑based API gateway with granular control and analytics
Janus delivers a single‑binary, high‑performance API gateway that offers hot‑reloading, rate limiting, circuit breaking, and built‑in support for JWT, OAuth2, and OpenTracing, all configurable via a RESTful management API.
Overview
Highlights
Single‑binary deployment eliminates dependency management
Hot‑reloading configuration without service interruption
Fine‑grained rate limiting and circuit breaker per API key
Built‑in support for JWT, OAuth2, Basic Auth and OpenTracing
Pros
- Lightweight binary runs on multiple OS/architectures
- Extensive auth and traffic‑control options
- RESTful admin API enables automation and CI/CD integration
- Docker image simplifies provisioning and scaling
Considerations
- Requires Go 1.9+ to build from source
- Management is CLI/REST only; no graphical UI
- Advanced policies may need custom middleware development
- Community size smaller than some commercial gateways
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Janus, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams needing a fast, programmable gateway for microservices
- Projects that prefer the Go ecosystem and single‑binary deployment
- Organizations that want built‑in analytics and tracing support
- Deployments where a Docker image streamlines CI/CD pipelines
Not ideal when
- Use cases demanding a full graphical admin console
- Environments that require out‑of‑the‑box enterprise support contracts
- Scenarios needing an extensive plugin marketplace
- Very large enterprises preferring vendor‑backed SLA guarantees
How teams use it
Secure public API for mobile app
Expose backend services with JWT authentication, rate limiting per user, and real‑time tracing to monitor performance.
Internal microservice mesh traffic control
Apply circuit breakers and retries per service, hot‑reload routing rules without downtime.
Rapid prototyping of a SaaS product
Deploy Janus via Docker, configure CORS and OAuth2 in minutes, allowing developers to focus on core features.
Analytics‑driven API monitoring
Collect detailed request metrics and error logs through built‑in analytics for continuous improvement.
Tech snapshot
Go86%
Gherkin12%
Shell1%
Mustache1%
Makefile1%
Dockerfile1%
Frequently asked questions
What platforms does Janus run on?
Janus provides pre‑compiled binaries for Linux (amd64, i386, arm64), macOS (amd64, i386) and Windows (amd64, i386), and can also be run from its official Docker image.
How is configuration updated without restarting?
Janus watches its configuration files and applies changes on the fly, enabling hot‑reloading of routes, auth settings, and rate‑limit rules.
Which authentication methods are supported out of the box?
Janus includes native support for JWT, OAuth 2.0, and Basic Auth, and can be extended via custom middleware.
Does Janus provide tracing integration?
Yes, it supports OpenTracing and works with Google Cloud Trace and Jaeger for distributed tracing.
How can I manage users and API keys programmatically?
Janus exposes a RESTful management API that lets you create, update, and delete users, keys, and API configurations from scripts or CI pipelines.
Project at a glance
Dormant- Stars
- 2,850
- Watchers
- 2,850
- Forks
- 328
LicenseMIT
Repo age9 years old
Last commit2 years ago
Primary languageGo
Last synced 3 hours ago