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3scale API Management vs Apiary comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management
Ranking in API Management
28th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apiary
Ranking in API Management
37th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apiary is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
3scale API Management1.8%
Apiary0.9%
Other97.3%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2747757 - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Facilitates API exposure securely and highlights developer portal flexibility needs
Not much stands out for me regarding the advantages of this product. We usually don't tinker with it. Developing developer portals could be more standards-based. I think currently it's Ruby-based. Having more options on designing that would be beneficial. Additional flexibility would have been great; we would have used it more if it aligned with our platform. I don't use the analytics part. We don't use monetization features, which help to create a revenue generation model.
PW
Enterprise Integration Architect at Capgemini
The ability to configure rules to check for consistency has helped
Apiary provides a free tier of the platform which allows a small group of developers to collaborate easily on the design of open source APIs. In addition to this, it provides mock endpoints allowing people to experiment with the API without depending or having to stand up a real backend. With our clients, using Apiary allows us to very quickly pull together an API definition (particularly when using API Blueprint). The whole API design process for the simpler use cases can be done in a relatively short workshop which makes it a lot easier to agree, publish, version-manage an API definition with suitable documentation. This can then be evolved and enhanced (particularly in the documentation aspects). With the ability to support Swagger (Open API v2 and introducing/ed support for v3) and API Blueprint makes it a very versatile tool.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is quite lightweight, and the installation is very easy. It's like a two-click installation."
"The standard deployment is very simple."
"The gateway is the most valuable feature because it makes it possible for us to gather all traffic into one proxy, which is a good thing."
"3scale API Managment provides a platform facilitating Trusted Service Providers communicating with the service provider securely and efficiently, greatly enhancing direct business transactions and application to application communications."
"One of the most valuable aspects of this solution for us is its ease of deployment."
"The product is stable."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and security features."
"3scale: what a really good product to secure an unsecure API if you have multiple backend unsecured routes provided by an ESB (Red Hat Fuse), and available through one unique frontend acting as a secure gateway (with HTTPS protocol and API keys)."
"Git integration"
"I find the generation of mock services very useful, especially when demonstrating for new consumers."
"Vey high - very easy API design with no setup effort"
"I do like the overall performance of the solution."
"This solution has allowed us to standardize API definitions and bring consistency into our shared components, reducing the effort and cost of using functionality across domains within the organization, with Apiary being crucial to our good API strategy."
"Quick and easy way to share a new API design with teams."
"In two years, there was one time the service was down for an hour or so."
"The feature I find most valuable is that it offers authentication and allows us to develop communication points."
 

Cons

"The user experience could be better. The developer portal is too complex and hard to configure."
"It may not fit for an enterprise who is trying to manage their API users and the approval process."
"The initial setup is complex and takes four months to complete."
"Setting up OIDC authentication would be another use case for this product."
"I believe the CMS part of it has room for improvement though. That is where you write a couple of things if you want to publish your API. It's based on liquid scripting, which doesn't seem like the obvious ones to script with."
"What I'd like to improve in 3scale API Management is its route-limiting feature. Currently, I don't know how to do that effectively on the solution, but in Kong, I know how to do it, so I would love to see route-limiting being easily done on 3scale API Management. It would also be good if there was some authentication that you could do from 3scale API Management because Kong offers that functionality out of the box. What I'd love to see in the next release of 3scale API Management is the ability to integrate more plug-ins easily onto the platform, so you'll be able to extend it, and even do customs management. If Red Hat could offer that extension where it allows the internal organization where 3scale API Management is deployed on-premise to integrate its tools on top of 3scale API Management and provide an API for that, that will make the solution very powerful."
"We tried to use the portal, but we decided that it wasn't enough. The content management system (CMS) is not easy to use if you want to customize things, and it's hard to get someone who has the knowledge to work with the CMS."
"As much as we tried to implement 3scale API Management the incompatibility of the version did not allow us to proceed."
"I don't think this solution is very stable so we try to manage stability from our side."
"Validation messages could be a bit clearer."
"Swagger (OpenAPI Specification) and Blueprint Support"
"Better Swagger support."
"The Oracle release cycle is very bad because the patches only update once a year."
"I would like an integrated option to download a Swagger version of the definition."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is affordable, it's cheap."
"The cost was around $45,000 per year."
"3scale API Management has reasonable pricing, judging from its competitor, Kong. My organization pays yearly for the 3scale API Management license, though I'm unable to give the exact figure because every single day there are new clusters deployed. I'm in charge of three to four clusters in my team, but give or take, it costs a few thousand lakhs."
"I don't think that 3scale is very expensive."
"It is easy to get started with personal (free) accounts, but a subscription is required for additional features."
"There is a free subscription option to start and try the service."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Construction Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with 3scale API Management?
Not much stands out for me regarding the advantages of this product. We usually don't tinker with it. Developing developer portals could be more standards-based. I think currently it's Ruby-based. ...
What is your primary use case for 3scale API Management?
Our company exposes different APIs, and we use it to monitor traffic, limit traffic, and similar functions. I don't have much involvement with the solution, though I did conduct some research. We s...
What advice do you have for others considering 3scale API Management?
In my work, I am using both Azure API Management and 3scale API Management. We're on the Red Hat platform, so this product aligns naturally. I would rate 3scale API Management a six out of ten.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
Microsoft, salesforce.com, Bloomberg, GoodData, Viacom, Akamai Technologies, DigitalGlobe
Find out what your peers are saying about 3scale API Management vs. Apiary and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.