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Apigee vs Microsoft Azure API Management vs MuleSoft API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Apigee improves API management, enhances security, and boosts sales, despite costs, by monetizing digital assets and supporting collaborations.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Azure API Management boosts integration quality, reduces lead times, and offers significant financial benefits while impacting ROI through costs.
Sentiment score
6.4
MuleSoft API Manager boosts efficiency, simplifies integration, cuts development time by 50%, and enhances system maintenance and connectivity.
Proper configuration of the solution, implementation strategy and correct scaling tier selection are other factors that influence the ROI.
It helps connect all multi-environment applications to a single dashboard and give beautiful reports.
If I am working in AWS and with Azure, I see that Azure is much easier and helps save time while also being able to manage and deploy the API services.
This iPaaS platform with CloudHub eliminates variable infrastructure-related costs and saves enterprises on connectivity and operations costs, as everything comes bundled from the MuleSoft side.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Apigee's customer support is mixed, valued for responsiveness but criticized for delays and disparities in service attention.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Azure API Management support is generally positive but needs improved response times and expertise for complex issues.
Sentiment score
7.3
MuleSoft API Manager customer support is effective and quick, but premium subscription fees and priority handling raise concerns.
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.
The documentation from Microsoft helps our company to solve issues on our own.
The initial support engineers are often not qualified.
I logged an incident, and it was resolved promptly within three hours.
Our enterprise pays for a special success program, which provides priority support.
They can be slow in addressing security vulnerabilities.
If bug fixing is required for downtimes or issues, we receive prompt support with alternative solutions or workarounds.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Apigee scales efficiently and flexibly, handling high traffic well, though cost challenges may arise with increased use.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Azure API Management offers scalable, cloud-based flexibility, efficiently handling multiple APIs and supporting thousands of users, though costs may rise.
Sentiment score
7.1
MuleSoft API Manager offers scalable enterprise solutions across environments, though costs and complexity challenges may arise.
Adding extra Cassandra databases is complex.
I've worked with multiple tools from an observability perspective, such as Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, and I find KQL and APIM amazing and filled with useful features.
It handles our current workload well, and I'm optimistic it can scale effectively as our needs grow.
There are no limitations to adding any number of devices.
Regarding availability, especially with iPaaS solutions, they guarantee 99.99%.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Apigee is stable and reliable, with rare downtime and strong performance supported by Google Cloud, ideal for complex enterprise needs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Azure API Management is reliable, stable, and integrates well, offering scalability and high availability with minor performance improvement needs.
Sentiment score
7.8
MuleSoft API Manager is reliable, handling capacity demands well, with high user satisfaction but occasional cost concerns.
Apigee is stable, and we have had the system running on Apigee servers for more than four years without any stability issues.
I can't guarantee its stability or flexibility until all our databases and financial systems are integrated.
Microsoft Azure API Management is very stable.
With high scalability and availability, it supports many users and endpoints without significant issues.
There was an issue when trying to implement a request-reply pattern using JMS, which was not functioning as expected despite being documented.
 

Room For Improvement

Users desire better role-based access, Git integration, automation, pricing, analytics, documentation, and technical support in Apigee.
Microsoft Azure API Management users face high costs, integration issues, and demand better features, customization, and improved deployment efficiency.
MuleSoft API Manager struggles with pricing, complexity, scalability, and limited features, impacting flexibility and user adoption.
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.
The service is extensive and expensive, and this added flexibility would make it more manageable and less prone to errors.
It's quite expensive, which could be a barrier for some users.
Documentations for the product should include examples of implementation.
Introducing features related to auto governance without manual effort would make the API Manager smarter and more efficient for enterprises with complex landscapes.
Managing the cost of MuleSoft, particularly the billing model based on the number of active cores/threads, has been challenging.
 

Setup Cost

Apigee is costly and complex, ideal for medium to large enterprises with comprehensive features justifying its subscription-based pricing.
Microsoft Azure API Management offers varied pricing models appealing to businesses, but premium features can become costly when scaling.
MuleSoft API Manager is expensive but robust, with flexible pricing models posing budgeting challenges compared to competitors.
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.
It's an expensive solution.
However, once you scale up to your full volume, it'll be more expensive.
Microsoft Azure is an expensive solution not for the large enterprises but for medium and small.
The major challenge they face is the high pricing, which has become notable especially since they transitioned from a VCore to a usage-based subscription.
The cost for using MuleSoft is approximately $500,000 USD per year.
MuleSoft is typically more expensive compared to using Java or Spring Boot APIs hosted in containers.
 

Valuable Features

Apigee offers robust API management with analytics, security, customization, scalability, and user-friendly features, enhancing enterprise decision-making.
Microsoft Azure API Management offers user-friendly API orchestration with robust features including security, scalability, and comprehensive Azure integration.
MuleSoft API Manager excels in security, integration, and ease, featuring policy support, flexibility, and efficient management with robust documentation.
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.
The platform's most valuable features are its rule-based permissions and comprehensive API lifecycle management capabilities.
The ability to create a subscription model for APIs allows companies to monetize valuable data and share it securely.
The analytics phase of API Management is very beneficial for tracking API usage and identifying suspicious users.
MuleSoft's ability to connect to third-party monitoring platforms like AWS, Datadog, and Elastic makes operational analysis more efficient.
It also enables us to create additional layers of authentication, like integrating external providers for OAuth, within reduced timelines.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apigee is 11.1%, down from 15.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 16.5%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 5.0%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure API Management16.5%
Apigee11.1%
MuleSoft API Manager5.0%
Other67.4%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

ShawkyFoda  - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides high visibility and control with good traffic monitoring
Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability. The replication process between Master and Slave for disaster recovery takes too long. Dependencies on analytics impact the performance of the user interface, which should be separate. The complex setup process on-premises, especially with multi-node installations, could also be improved. Additional control in product declarations, based on operations like POST and GET, is needed.
Abdul Ghani Shahzaib - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures compliance and security in API integrations with a plug and play setup
We are working on almost everything Microsoft Businesses, Dynamics CRM and Dynamics FinOps ERP. We are utilizing Microsoft Azure hosting platform. We are using API service, Azure functions, event grid, API Management, and all types of Azure services on a need basis The integration and API Connect…
D.Rajesh Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved Integration Efficiency and Potential for Further Enhancements in Monitoring and User Experience
The policies in MuleSoft API Manager are significant features. We get the policies by default, with more than 25 out-of-the-box policies. If any additional requirement exists specific to the customer, there is a custom policy framework. We can build the policy according to our requirement, and deploy and enable it at the API Manager level to consume across different business groups, environments, or organizations altogether within the platform. Developing the custom policy is not challenging; you just need to follow the custom policy framework to implement. The custom policy and the different levels of SLAs of the API Manager are notable. Regarding the monitoring side of the API Manager, MuleSoft provides substantial monitoring with logs, offering search capability, raw data accessibility, and different subscriptions. With the top tier, integration with third-party platforms such as ELK or Splunk becomes unnecessary because all search capabilities, dashboards, and functional monitoring can be built within the platform itself. This is excellent from the monitoring perspective, and there have been recent improvements focusing on observability. For DevOps, if you want to make your continuous integration and continuous deployment effective, irrespective of the tool, there are options to integrate. For example, you can use the Maven plugin, platform APIs, or CLI to build your end-to-end DevOps cycle.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise65
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise52
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a clou...
Which is better - Apigee or Amazon API Gateway?
Amazon API Gateway is a platform that supports the creation and publication of API for web applications. The platform...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web se...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure API Management?
The pricing is medium, which I find to be reasonable for the value we receive.
How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of sof...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy po...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
Anypoint API Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, advance.net, Amadeus, AT&T, Bechtel, Belly, Burberry, Chegg, Citrix, Dell, eBay, Equifax, GameStop, First Data, Globe, HCSC, Intralinks, Kao, Meredith, Mitchell, Orange, Pearson
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in API Management. Updated: October 2025.
870,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.