What is Orange API Gateway used for?

Orange API Gateway is a free, MIT-licensed OpenResty and Nginx-based API gateway for monitoring and managing APIs, written in Lua on top of the Lor framework. It is a good fit for monitoring and managing APIs at the gateway layer, and adding API policies to an existing Nginx/OpenResty setup.

Is Orange API Gateway open source?

Yes. Orange API Gateway is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at orlabs/orange and is written mainly in Lua.

Is Orange API Gateway free?

Yes. Orange API Gateway is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Orange API Gateway?

Yes. Orange API Gateway can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Orange API Gateway an alternative to?

Orange API Gateway is an open-source alternative to Apigee, Amazon API Gateway, Azure API Management and IBM API Connect. Other open-source alternatives to Apigee include Apache APISIX, Kong and Tyk.

Is Orange API Gateway actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Orange API Gateway was on 25 August 2023, and the latest release is v0.8.1, published on 13 December 2019. The project has 2.3k stars on GitHub.

Orange API Gateway: open-source alternative to Apigee

About Orange API Gateway

Orange is an API gateway built on OpenResty, the Nginx and Lua platform, aimed at teams that want API monitoring and management capabilities built directly into their reverse proxy layer. It is designed for environments running on OpenResty rather than a general-purpose gateway independent of Nginx.

It is built using the Lor web framework for Lua and stores its configuration and plugin data in a MySQL database. After installation, Orange exposes both a dashboard, for monitoring and managing API policies, and a separate API server for programmatic configuration, each running on its own port.

Installation uses LuaRocks to reduce dependency issues across operating systems, requires OpenResty, resty-cli and the Lor framework as prerequisites, and currently does not support macOS for either production or development setups. Orange is written in Lua and released under the MIT license, with documentation available in both English and Chinese.

Key features

OpenResty and Nginx-based API gateway
API monitoring dashboard
Separate API server for configuration
MySQL-backed policy storage
Plugin-based request handling via Lor

Good fit for

→Monitoring and managing APIs at the gateway layer
→Adding API policies to an existing Nginx/OpenResty setup

Built with: Lua
Tags: api-gateway; openresty; nginx; lua; monitoring; self-hosted; api-management

Orange API Gateway: questions and answers

What is Orange API Gateway used for?: Orange API Gateway is a free, MIT-licensed OpenResty and Nginx-based API gateway for monitoring and managing APIs, written in Lua on top of the Lor framework. It is a good fit for monitoring and managing APIs at the gateway layer, and adding API policies to an existing Nginx/OpenResty setup.
Is Orange API Gateway open source?: Yes. Orange API Gateway is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at orlabs/orange and is written mainly in Lua.
Is Orange API Gateway free?: Yes. Orange API Gateway is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Orange API Gateway?: Yes. Orange API Gateway can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Orange API Gateway an alternative to?: Orange API Gateway is an open-source alternative to Apigee, Amazon API Gateway, Azure API Management and IBM API Connect. Other open-source alternatives to Apigee include Apache APISIX, Kong and Tyk.
Is Orange API Gateway actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Orange API Gateway was on 25 August 2023, and the latest release is v0.8.1, published on 13 December 2019. The project has 2.3k stars on GitHub.