We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and Layer7 API Management based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two API Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The ability for all of our web applications to share standard functions and documents easily is valuable."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"The functionalities on offer are very good."
"It's quite flexible and easy to deploy, especially for beginners. It has almost all the features that an API gateway should have."
"Scalable and stable API platform for creating and managing APIs."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The management of the API and API portal is good."
"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to distribute work among our API developers, so we don't have to do all the work as IBM API Connect administrators and IBM DataPower administrators."
"The solution fills our two most important concerns in seeking an API solution by providing a reliable gateway and security options."
"Almost all security features are available out-of-the-box and can be deployed rapidly."
"The most valuable features of Layer7 API Management are integration, ease of use, building APIs easily, and portal straightforward."
"We can create multiple orgs and set up policies and management. We can also integrate with an APM solution"
"API discovery using CA Live API Creator is helpful for integrating with multiple backends, for discovering and kickstarting the API creation process. It is a very good feature."
"The most valuable feature of Layer7 API Management is that their policy is really easy to develop and it is flexible."
"The administration interface (Policy Manager) is very easy to understand and use."
"It is able to withstand the number of API calls and handle different API requirements to secure, transform, log, and track API usage patterns."
"There is room for improvement regarding the connectivity of the DevOps."
"The installation process could use improvement. I hope that in the next release, the installation process is easier."
"It would be nice to have a SaaS solution that can be deployed into the cloud."
"The installation was difficult with the IBM toolkit."
"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."
"The solution is overly complex."
"API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database."
"We ran it on top of the Kubernetes cluster, so it wasn't a standalone service. In the worst-case scenario, API Connect couldn't stay online if all the containers went down. We had to restart all the services. We shut down all the containers automatically one by one."
"The security protocols in CA's product, for financial services, weren't as good as those in API Connect."
"The entire lifecycle management approach needs improvement: from the API management, development, deployment, some of the settings around the quotas, and some security policy applications, etc. for the APIs. We found the Apigee platform a lot more robust in that area."
"The development portal could be improved."
"I understand that clients are often concerned about costs. They might be exploring other options due to the high cost associated with our current package."
"The development toolkit used for creating APIs should be more online and user-friendly. Deployment and tracking could also be improved. Tools like Apigee provide a complete online experience along with RESTful APIs, to manage all activities. It is a very nice and user-friendly solution compared to CA."
"Needs to work better with DB2 UDB."
"The OTK, however, is a complex upgrade. They tend to change the schemas on the database behind it, between the versions, which can be a pain to have to migrate all of our existing clients from one database schema to the other."
"The delivery is bulky in terms of implementation. Its price could also be better. It is a very good product as compared to CA API, Google API, and WSO2 API, but its price is high. From the cloud-native perspective, some new features need to be added. It could also be made simpler to implement."
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while Layer7 API Management is ranked 10th in API Management with 109 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while Layer7 API Management is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of IBM API Connect writes "Good speed and performance, but it's based on a bit dated architecture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Layer7 API Management writes "Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding ". IBM API Connect is most compared with Apigee, IBM DataPower Gateway, Microsoft Azure API Management, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, whereas Layer7 API Management is most compared with Apigee, Kong Gateway Enterprise, Amazon API Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and IBM DataPower Gateway. See our IBM API Connect vs. Layer7 API Management report.
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We monitor all API Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
