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3scale API Management vs SwaggerHub comparison

 

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
21st
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SwaggerHub
Ranking in API Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.4%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SwaggerHub1.4%
3scale API Management2.3%
Other96.3%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Luis Bonilla - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides cost savings while maintaining the same functionality and capabilities
There were two main reasons for consideration. One of them was the cost. It is true that the other solution had more capabilities, but we didn't have plans to use them. We didn't need them, but the cost was slightly higher. Also, we were already working with the Red Hat solution and integrating it with some other solutions we have in place. It was better and more convenient for us. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Has streamlined API documentation and integration workflows across cross-functional teams
Documenting SwaggerHub has a standard and consistent structure of API definitions, and it automatically generates interactive documentation which helps the developers to understand everything. There are certain areas where SwaggerHub can go beyond here as formatting options for documentation pages are restricted, and the import and export options of API collections are complex in SwaggerHub. It provides various collaboration tools where we can work and do it. The strong validation against the API maintains conformity and reduces errors. That part is very great in SwaggerHub. Overall, scalability and stability-wise, it varies high compared to the competitors, but there are still certain areas where competitors are providing various customizations. SwaggerHub can understand those aspects and implement them as well. The complex import and export of API calls and collaborations can be challenging in SwaggerHub. If they can make it easier for us, that would be great. Their performance is degraded if there is too much load on the API. The customization and doc formatting options for documentation pages are restricted in SwaggerHub. A few of my teammates have complained that they find the UI unintuitive where it requires multiple clicks for simple tasks. SwaggerHub is a great tool, but these limitations can be addressed to make things better and easier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"3scale API Management's best feature is API management."
"It's good that they aren't adding a lot of features like ESP, etc. It's okay with just being a gateway."
"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."
"The product is stable."
"I like the API automation."
"The standard deployment is very simple."
"To me, the most valuable feature of 3scale API Management is that it lets you add a backend to the product. I also like that you can integrate it well with OpenShift clusters, making 3scale API Management a useful solution."
"It simplifies exposing our APIs externally and inherently adds a layer of security, which I see as a positive impact from the product."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy and not at all difficult."
"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."
"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."
"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."
"SwaggerHub has significantly improved how my organization designs, documents, and manages APIs, centralizing API management so that all API definitions are stored in one location, which makes it easy for stakeholders, developers, QA, DevOps, and products to access the latest version."
"It is a stable solution."
"The scalability is endless."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful to improve the customization features so that the customer can do it based on their own needs."
"The product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it."
"What was suggested by Red Hat was a crucial part of the configuration, but when we started to ask about the supportability of this configuration, Red Hat said only some parts of the configuration would be supported."
"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."
"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."
"The user experience could be better. The developer portal is too complex and hard to configure."
"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."
"3scale API Management only supports restful APIs and doesn't support SOAP."
"In SwaggerHub, I appreciate that it is a powerful platform for API design and collaboration, but currently, the access control is somewhat limited."
"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."
"It has limited functionality...Unfortunately, some of its features are not what we need."
"SwaggerHub's UI needs to be improved as it looks very old school."
"The customization and doc formatting options for documentation pages are restricted in SwaggerHub."
"More integration and usability with the cloud microservices would be nice"
"The review process should be improved. There seem to be some gaps, at least for us, for the editing part because we would like to have a full request review mechanism. They support some comments, but it is really hard to manage those comments. We would like to use the full request. Therefore, we are now looking to integrate with repositories. It has integration with Bitbucket and GitHub, but we have some internal constraints, and we need to move some of the repositories to GitHub. Our source code is on-premise in Bitbucket, and it was a bit of a problem for us to integrate. Now we are transitioning our repositories to GitHub, and hopefully, we can enable the integration. This will probably solve the problem with the review and approval. Its customization should also be improved. There are limitations around the support for the developer portal. There should be more customization options for the website that you can use as a developer portal. Currently, it has only Swagger UI with minimal customization. You cannot actually add additional pages and documentation for explaining concepts and general things. That's why we have started to look around to see what other tools are doing. They should also allow tagging on the API. We would like to add some tagging on the API to reflect certain things. Currently, any metadata that you would like to have has to be a part of the spec. You cannot do anything else. It should also have support for Open API 3.1, which was released at the beginning of the year. It would be great to be able to switch to that."
"Some areas of SwaggerHub that could be improved include the interface between the code editor and the visual editor, the integration with private APIs, which currently requires an upgraded account."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't think that 3scale is very expensive."
"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."
"The tool is cheap."
"It has a yearly subscription, but I am not sure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
13%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?
I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
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 do you like most about SwaggerHub?
The tool's most valuable feature is licensing.
What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?
In SwaggerHub, I appreciate that it is a powerful platform for API design and collaboration, but currently, the access control is somewhat limited. I would love to see enhanced permissions allowing...
What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?
I have worked for Arden University, University of Sheffield, and Nanyang Technological University. For those institutions, I used Amazon AppStream for backend validations. When working for Prolific...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower
Find out what your peers are saying about 3scale API Management vs. SwaggerHub and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.