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64 changes: 23 additions & 41 deletions universal-gateway/overview.mdx
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
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---
title: Universal Gateway Overview
sidebarTitle: Overview
description: Learn about ngrok's suite of common tools for building API and device gateways, identity-aware proxies, and site-to-site connectivity.
---

ngrok's Universal Gateway is a suite of common tools for building API and device gateways, identity-aware proxies, and site-to-site connectivity.
It secures, accelerates, and protects your applications.
We call it a Universal Gateway because it supports [TCP](/universal-gateway/tcp/) and [TLS](/universal-gateway/tls/) applications as well as [HTTP/S](/universal-gateway/http/).

## Concepts
**What makes it "universal"?**

Dive into the different parts of the Universal Gateway like Endpoints, Bindings, Pools, and Domains to understand how they work.
The Universal Gateway can be used with software running locally or in the cloud, and with devices running on-premises or distributed in the field.
It supports [TCP](/universal-gateway/tcp/) and [TLS](/universal-gateway/tls/) applications as well as [HTTP/S](/universal-gateway/http/).
You can deliver traffic to internal and public APIs as well as orchestrate traffic across your devices.
It's globally distributed by default and provides support for multiple environments with minimal configuration.

Learn more about Universal Gateway Concepts:
## Features

- [Domains →](/universal-gateway/domains/)
- [TCP Addresses →](/universal-gateway/tcp-addresses/)
- [TLS Certificates →](/universal-gateway/tls-certificates/)
- [Edges →](/universal-gateway/edges/)
Here are some of the key features of the Universal Gateway platform:

## Endpoints
- [**Traffic Policy**](/traffic-policy/): filter, match, manage, and orchestrate traffic to your endpoints.
- [**Traffic observability**](/obs/): capture request and response data; replay requests against your endpoints for debugging replication.
- [**Identity and access management**](/iam/): manage credentials for human users and automated processes.
- [**Kubernetes support**](/k8s/): ngrok's Kubernetes Operator supports ingress resources as well as cross-platform Gateway API configuration resources.

[Endpoints](/universal-gateway/endpoints/) are how ngrok enables traffic to reach your services.
## Use cases

Learn more about Endpoints:
Here are some of the most common use cases for the Universal Gateway, from the [examples collection](/universal-gateway/examples/):

- [Bindings →](/universal-gateway/bindings/)
- [Internal Endpoints →](/universal-gateway/internal-endpoints/)
- [Public Endpoints →](/universal-gateway/public-endpoints/)
- [Kubernetes Endpoints →](/universal-gateway/kubernetes-endpoints/)
- [**The front door pattern**](/universal-gateway/examples/front-door-pattern/): Set up a single public endpoint to serve as the centralized entrance to all upstream services.
- [**Route to endpoints by geography**](/universal-gateway/examples/route-by-geography/): Forward requests based on IP geolocation data for improved latency or country-specific features.
- [**Create identity-based rate limits**](/universal-gateway/examples/pre-tier-requests/): Pre-tier requests based on your packaging or pricing model.
- [**Secure a public Minecraft server**](/universal-gateway/examples/minecraft/): Restrict server access to a specific set of IP addresses.
- [**Intercept and rewrite headers**](/universal-gateway/examples/rewrite-headers-redirects/): Intercept 302 redirect headers to preserve UX and agent behavior.

## Load Balancing
## What's next?

Endpoints Pools make load balancing dead simple.
When your create two endpoints with the same URL (and binding), those endpoints automatically "pool" together and traffic to their URL is balanced among them.

- [Learn more about Load Balancing with Endpoint Pools →](/universal-gateway/endpoint-pooling/)

## TLS

ngrok automatically handles TLS (SSL) termination and certificate management for you.
There is typically nothing to setup, configure, or manage.

- [Learn more about TLS Certificates →](/universal-gateway/tls-certificates/)
- [Learn more about the TLS Termination →](/universal-gateway/tls-termination/)

## Global Load Balancer

ngrok's Global Load Balancer automatically improves the performance and resiliency of your applications by distributing traffic to the nearest healthy point of presence, measured by latency, from the perspective of the connecting client.

- [Learn more about the Global Load Balancer →](/universal-gateway/global-load-balancer/)
- [See ngrok's Global Points of Presence →](/universal-gateway/points-of-presence)

## DDoS Protection

ngrok automatically protects your applications with out-of-the-box protection from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

- [Learn more about DDoS Protection →](/universal-gateway/ddos-protection)
- Check out the [Universal Gateway examples collection](/universal-gateway/examples/) to see how to implement even more common use cases.
- Explore key concepts for working with the Universal Gateway such as [endpoint types](/universal-gateway/types/), [protocols](/universal-gateway/protocols/), [bindings](/universal-gateway/bindings/), and [pooling](/universal-gateway/endpoint-pooling/).
- Proceed to the Guides section to get started with ngrok as an [API gateway](/guides/api-gateway/get-started/), [device gateway](/guides/device-gateway/agent/), [identity-aware proxy](/guides/identity-aware-proxy/securing-with-oauth/), or for [site-to-site connectivity](/guides/identity-aware-proxy/securing-with-oauth/).