Top 8 API Management
ApigeeMicrosoft Azure API ManagementMuleSoft Anypoint API ManagerAmazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectIBM DataPower GatewayLayer7 API ManagementWSO2 API Manager
Popular Comparisons Technical support has been decent.
The initial setup isn't too complex.
Popular Comparisons The API management is very good.
The API management is great.
Popular Comparisons We use it heavily because Azure offers better pricing than its competitors.
MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is a great solution. I like it very much because of its speed of delivery and because it allows API-led integration.
Popular Comparisons It is easy to set up. It is also quick to deploy.
The most valuable feature is it has lots of integration.
Popular Comparisons Its speed and performance are valuable.
WSRR is a powerful component for getting the endpoints.
Popular Comparisons Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable.
My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.
Popular Comparisons What I found most valuable in Layer7 API Management is that you can launch the API from the gateway quickly and securely, making it less complicated to deploy APIs. I also like that Layer7 API Management has a good portal and dashboards and that the dashboards show you statistics regarding how many people used the API, etc.
Popular Comparisons A complete integration suite and a good platform.
The user interface is easy to navigate, and the documentation is extensive. It's open-source, so everything is available, and we can create what we need. That's not necessarily a feature, but it's an advantage.
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API Management
February 2023

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API Management Topics
Why is API management important?What is an API management gateway?What are the benefits of API management?How do I measure the success of my API management efforts?Features of API Management Software Tools and Platforms
Why is API management important?
With an exploding number of applications taking over the digital world, companies are turning toward API management to expose more data so that they can provide more personalized app experiences for customers, partners, and internal users. APIs are creating exponential growth for companies and are enabling them to accomplish business goals faster than ever before. API management has proven to transform organizations by increasing efficiency, fostering innovation efforts, and helping them bring new services and products to market faster.
What is an API management gateway?
The tool that resides between a collection of backend services and a client is known as an API management gateway. Its programming is the single-entry point for back-end APIs and both internal and external microservices. An API management gateway enforces security, provides elastic scalability and high availability, and helps performance levels. By compiling all API requests from a client, an API gateway can determine which services are necessary and combines them into a single and seamless experience for the user.
What are the benefits of API management?
The benefits of API management include:
Improved customer experience: API management helps companies create a rich and personalized customer experience because it is easier to deliver new levels of convenience and responsiveness, thus enabling companies to create value-added services.
- Security: Accessibility makes APIs vulnerable. With an API management solution, sensitive data is protected and permissions are assigned and managed to avoid any security oversights that would otherwise be challenging to manage at the enterprise level. Additionally, API security protects your company from internal and external threats. When critical business functionality is exposed to customers, an API management platform can control levels of access for each app to verify identification, and can also detect anomalies to eliminate fraud.
- Scalability: In today’s day and age, companies and their employees interact with apps and data on a constant basis. API management increases accessibility, decreasing the technical burdens associated with the typical API lifecycle.
- API usage: An API management solution should provide insights about a company’s API consumers, making strategic business decisions easier. By gaining a deeper understanding of usage patterns, and other analytics such as device types or geographical information, API management can help companies adjust business strategies to meet customer demands.
- Agility: API management makes it possible to have an easily adaptable and agile ecosystem. Having an API management system helps companies create APIs in less time while simultaneously delivering services much faster. By being able to create new services quickly, customer satisfaction increases, and businesses benefit from more profits.
- Flexible ecosystem: In order to succeed with a digital transformation, it is essential to have an ecosystem that lends itself to adaptability, innovation, and flexibility. An API management system is critical to an ecosystem, since it is the solution to helping enterprises achieve the business agility they need.
- Leverage legacy systems: Organizations do not have to do away with existing legacy systems that may already be deeply embedded into their enterprise. Instead, legacy systems can be made API-accessible and can be used to only expose the legacy system’s functionality to internal and external stakeholders. API management makes it possible to translate outdated security protocols to more modern protocols that are standard and user-friendly.
- Easily accessible services: With an API management system, you can guarantee a seamless user experience for your customers by making services accessible anytime, from any location.
- Simple configuration: API management is easy to configure and can be applied to either new or existing APIs in a uniform manner.
- Compliance: Compliance standards tend to be very strict for a lot of industries. API management ensures that API use is compliant with government and organizational standards.
How do I measure the success of my API management efforts?
To evaluate the success of your API management efforts, it is important to consider these key performance objectives:
- Speed: Throughput and access latency can be used to measure speed. Throttling or caching can influence speed.
- Flexibility: For developers, flexibility means greater effort as well as cost when adopting APIs.
- Dependability: Simply put, dependability relates to the availability of an API to developers and is measured by downtime and quotas. How often an API is available for use and how many API calls a developer can make within a specific time frame makes its management more predictable. Developers need it to be easy to find APIs within the organization.
- Quality is the rate at which the API’s behavior meets a developer’s expectations. Ideally, an API management platform should reduce the amount of time it takes for a developer to adopt an API.
- Cost: Measuring costs is a way to get the best value for your money.
Features of API Management Software Tools and Platforms
Common features of an API management tool include:
- Security
- Sandbox environment
- High availability
- Usage reporting
- Backward compatibility
- Transformation of URLs and data
- Dashboards and analytics
- Routing and proxying
- Policies and restrictions
- Developer tools (like documentation generators)
Buyer's Guide
API Management
February 2023

Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, MuleSoft and others in API Management. Updated: February 2023.
685,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.