Dec 02, 2022
MuleSoft Anypoint
IBM API Connect and Apigee are leading contenders in the API management solutions category. While IBM API Connect is frequently noted for its comprehensive suite that addresses all API management needs, Apigee has the advantage of a robust feature set and flexibility.
Features: IBM API Connect places a strong emphasis on security and provides seamless integration capabilities with flexibility across on-premises and cloud environments. Its detailed analytics, gateway functionalities, and development tools facilitate efficient API management. Apigee, on the other hand, is praised for its API management features, advanced analytics, and modern standards support. Users find its interface friendly and appreciate the flexibility it offers.
Room for Improvement: Users of IBM API Connect seek a more intuitive setup and enhanced support for non-Java services, as well as improvements in documentation and customization. Apigee users suggest integration enhancement with identity providers and desire better support and monitoring tools. Pricing and flexibility challenges, along with the need for better documentation, are common issues faced by both solutions.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect provides diversified deployment options including on-premises, private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. The extensive support is valued, though there are concerns about response times and integration complexity. Apigee also offers comprehensive deployment choices with strong customer support but faces a learning curve with its advanced features. Both solutions ensure deployment flexibility and reliable support.
Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect is viewed as expensive, making it suitable for large enterprises with its comprehensive licensing options; however, users report significant ROI from streamlined API management. Apigee, perceived as costly with its API call-based pricing, justifies its ROI for large enterprises seeking robust solutions, though budget-focused organizations might find it restrictive even with efficiency gains.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
I have seen a return on investment from using IBM API Connect, as we created multiple plans based on customer usage.
They are responsive and provide assistance even during production issues.
The customer service and support are cooperative and effective in providing insights and solutions during challenges.
In the past two years, I have been experiencing less assistance.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
Support is extremely good, especially with Sev 1 issues.
Adding extra Cassandra databases is complex.
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
It is distributed among IBM MQ, IBM Ace, IBM DataPower, and IBM API Connect.
IBM API Connect's scalability is good, as you can handle it easily similar to how you manage cloud providers.
Apigee is stable, and we have had the system running on Apigee servers for more than four years without any stability issues.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
If it is functioning well, you won't have a bad experience and your application becomes more reliable.
Apigee only allows validation of transactions up to a four-hour period, which requires manual hovering over the date and time.
Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability.
Apigee should also incorporate these capabilities, especially in the on-premises version.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
You need to know when traffic peaks, so use auto-scaling when traffic comes.
Connectivity to MQ is not available in IBM API Connect.
Apigee is perceived as slightly costly compared to other tools in the market.
Apigee is high-priced, suitable for large enterprises where the benefit aligns with the cost.
Apigee is costlier compared to other solutions.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
It provides all the necessary capabilities for current technologies, enabling communication and translation between protocols, along with supporting stringent security features.
The features for API security have been significant with Apigee.
Apigee provides catalog management, onboarding of new customers, an API portal, and security features.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
We can add some policies to provide extra security, protect your backend, validate the consumers, and analyze based on the traffic limit to throw things out.
IBM API Connect has a designer and CLI features which can be used to completely automate the API.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Apigee | 8.8% |
| IBM API Connect | 5.0% |
| Other | 86.2% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 20 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 9 |
| Large Enterprise | 65 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 19 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 10 |
| Large Enterprise | 61 |
Apigee is a platform for developing and managing APIs. Apigee offers an interface for your core services by wrapping them with a proxy layer which is then accessed by other developers. With Apigee, you can design and build APIs and then securely share their services and data without exposing any code.
Because app developers make HTTP requests to an API proxy rather than directly to your services, your services are separated from the developers. All the developer needs to know is the URL of the API proxy endpoint, necessary query parameters, authorization credentials (if they exist), and the response data format.
The API proxy isolates the app developer from your backend service. Therefore, you are free to change the service implementation if the public API remains consistent. By maintaining a consistent frontend API, existing client apps will continue to work regardless of changes on the backend.
Key capabilities of the Apigee API management platform include:
Reviews from Real Users:
Apigee stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its rich developer portal, its advanced analytics, and its central monitoring system.
Carlos R., a software architect at Caja Los Andes writes, “The central monitoring feature is the most valuable. It also provides security for the APIs and high availability for our use cases. Apigee is the best product in the industry in comparison to other API management solutions. It helps in fast development, which is a top point. It also supports a lot of industry standards and has excellent documentation.”
An associate vice president at a tech services company notes, “The analytics function and the developer portal are the two valuable features of Apigee. The analytics part is very good, and the developer portal is quite rich in features. The authentication mechanisms are quite easily built into Apigee, which is something that most of the other products have also now started supporting.”
IBM API Connect is an API management tool providing robust security, seamless REST and SOAP conversion, and flexible deployment options for diverse cloud environments. It aids organizations in securing and monetizing their APIs while streamlining the development process.
IBM API Connect offers features like a security gateway, API lifecycle management, and integration with DataPower. Its intuitive interface enhances ease of use, supporting extensive analytics and traffic management. However, there are areas for improvement in automation, system integration, and user configuration. Organizations can deploy API Connect on-premises or in the cloud, delivering secure access control and analytics for banking, financial services, and government sectors. Compliance with standards like PSD2 ensures secure external API exposure and integration with multiple systems.
What are the most important features of IBM API Connect?In specific industries like banking, financial services, and government sectors, IBM API Connect plays a crucial role in API management, orchestration, and regulation tasks. It provides secure access, control, and compliance with industry standards, serving as an essential gateway for data exchange and integration across multiple systems.
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