The Traefik Ecosystem

The Traefik Product Family

Traefik is more than just a proxy. Traefik Labs offers a suite of products built on top of the open-source Traefik Proxy.

Traefik Proxy (Open Source)

The core open-source project — what this guide covers.

Key Features:

• Automatic service discovery (Docker, K8s, Consul, etc.)
• Dynamic configuration without reloads
• Built-in Let's Encrypt
• 30+ middleware modules
• TCP/UDP routing
• Prometheus metrics
• Web dashboard
• Plugin system

# Traefik Proxy is the foundation
services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:v3.3
    command:
      - "--providers.docker=true"
      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"

Traefik Hub

A commercial API management and connectivity platform built on Traefik Proxy.

Additional Features:

• API management portal
• Developer portal for API consumers
• API key management and rate limiting
• API catalog and discovery
• API analytics and dashboards
• Traffic policies (global API policies)
• GitOps workflow

When to use: You need to expose APIs to external developers with API key management, rate limiting, and a developer portal.

Traefik Enterprise

The enterprise-grade version of Traefik Proxy with additional security and compliance features.

Additional Features:

• Custom plugins (proprietary, not shared)
• Advanced access logs
• FIPS-compliant cryptography
• Enhanced audit logging
• SLA support
• SSO/SAML integration
• Web application firewall (WAF) integration
• Advanced rate limiting

When to use: Your organization has compliance requirements (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP) or needs enterprise support.

# Traefik Enterprise builds on Traefik Proxy
services:
  traefik:
    image: traefik:enterprise-v3.3
    command:
      - "--enterprise.license=your-license-key"
      - "--providers.docker=true"

Traefik AI Gateway

A specialized gateway for managing AI and LLM traffic.

Key Features:

• Provider abstraction — Single endpoint for OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, local LLMs
• Cost management — Budget controls, cost tracking per model/provider
• Rate limiting — Per API key, per model, per user
• Prompt inspection — Monitor prompts and responses
• Model fallback — Automatic failover between providers
• Caching — Cache similar responses to reduce API costs

# Traefik AI Gateway
http:
  routers:
    llm:
      rule: "Host(`ai.example.com`) && PathPrefix(`/v1`)"
      service: llm-gateway
      middlewares:
        - ai-rate-limit

  services:
    llm-gateway:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: "http://ai-gateway:8080"

  middlewares:
    ai-rate-limit:
      rateLimit:
        average: 100
        burst: 20
        period: 1m
        sourceCriterion:
          requestHeader:
            name: X-API-Key

When to use: You're building AI applications that need cost control, provider abstraction, and observability for LLM calls.

Traefik MCP Gateway

A gateway for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — enabling AI agents to securely access tools and data sources.

Key Features:

• MCP protocol translation
• Tool discovery and routing
• Secure authentication for agent access
• Rate limiting per agent/per user
• Audit logging of all tool calls
• Tool registry and version management

Product Comparison Matrix

Choosing the Right Product

Start with Traefik Proxy if:

• You need a reverse proxy with auto-discovery
• You want automatic TLS
• You're running containers or Kubernetes
• Open source is preferred

Add Traefik Hub if:

• You expose APIs to external developers
• You need API key management and a developer portal
• You want API analytics

Upgrade to Traefik Enterprise if:

• You have compliance requirements
• You need FIPS or audit features
• You require vendor support and SLA

Add AI Gateway if:

• You route traffic to LLM providers
• You need cost control for AI APIs
• You want provider abstraction

Add MCP Gateway if:

• You're building AI agent systems
• Your agents need secure access to tools
• You need audit trails for agent actions