Layer7 API Management vs SwaggerHub comparison

Broadcom and SmartBear are both solutions in the API Management category. Broadcom is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.6, while SmartBear is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.6. Broadcom holds a 2.9% mindshare in APIM, compared to SmartBear’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of SmartBear users who would recommend it.

Layer7 API Management

Read 112 Layer7 API Management reviews

4,452 Views
3,228 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SwaggerHub

Read 10 SwaggerHub reviews

1,863 Views
1,459 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Layer7 API Management

SwaggerHub

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Layer7 API Management and SwaggerHub compete in API management and design. Layer7 is preferred for its robust security and governance, while SwaggerHub excels in collaboration and integration.

Features:Layer7 offers advanced security options, traffic management, and detailed analytics, making it suitable for enterprises focused on robust governance and lifecycle management. It has strong policy configuration tools tailored for stringent API governance. SwaggerHub emphasizes ease of use, offering collaboration features for API design and documentation along with seamless integration with developer tools.

Room for Improvement:Layer7 could enhance its collaboration tools and simplify integration processes to appeal more to development teams. Additionally, streamlining its policy management interface could improve usability. SwaggerHub might benefit from strengthened security features and comprehensive governance functionalities to cater to enterprises with strict security policies. Expanding its analytics capabilities could also support more data-driven decision-making.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Layer7 provides flexible deployment options and offers enterprise-level support services, ensuring smooth transitions and comprehensive ongoing assistance. SwaggerHub’s cloud-based deployment eases the initial setup process, catering to teams without substantial IT infrastructure. However, its customer service, while efficient, does not match the comprehensive support offered by Layer7.

Pricing and ROI:Layer7 involves higher upfront costs aligning with its extensive features and enterprise benefits, promising long-term ROI for large businesses. Alternatively, SwaggerHub presents a more accessible pricing model, ideal for small to medium teams focused on collaborative API design. It offers quicker, cost-effective returns, especially for teams prioritizing collaboration and faster design iterations.

To learn more, read our detailed Layer7 API Management vs. SwaggerHub Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Layer7 API Management vs. SwaggerHub

April 2025

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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

Layer7 API Management

Ranking in API Management

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

112

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SwaggerHub

Ranking in API Management

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Layer7 API Management is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SwaggerHub is 1.4%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

Ronald D'Souza

Presales Consultant for CA Southern Africa at Hyperion Holding Pty Ltd

Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding

I have mainly implemented using Layer 7 API Management. Some of the major challenges we were able to meet with a quick release to market methodology. Some of the tasks which we achieved for our customers were: 1. Translation service from SOAP to REST and vice versa. 2. API service to DB (Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA) -- Created Swagger APIs that were able to perform CRUD operation to the backend API mentioned above and provided routes to query and get data. 3. Integration with Payment gateway service providers to perform (transaction on behalf of the customer with third-party payment gateway service providers white labeled with our APIs ) -- Followed TMF standards for payment gateway integration with the Telcom world. 4. Orchestration of the API. Build multiple microservers and provided orchestration based on route, path, and data in the request and perform actions that would be communicated with multiple APIs and provide a single consolidated response. 5. Provided API-driven security (Oauth 2.0, JWT, SAML, Basic, and a variety of means) to access the API giving the developer the freedom to concentrate only on application/service/microservice and let the gateway handle the threat. 6. Seamless Mutual Authentication allowed good segregation between APIs in the DMZ and internal network.

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SwaminathanSubramanian

Director/Enterprise Solutions Architect, Technology Advisor at Kyndryl

Facilitating enterprise-wide API governance and management

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. The scalability also needs enhancement, as it becomes flaky under increased load. Additionally, the versioning management could be improved to be on par with source code management tools.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Tech support is fast and responsive."

"It is able to withstand the number of API calls and handle different API requirements to secure, transform, log, and track API usage patterns."

"From a security standpoint, it works great. It is the right solution for us. It's lightweight, a software-appliance configuration which was easy to deploy and configure."

"It is a stable product."

"This improved our organization, because it gives the management data to discuss for the next course of action and it suggests what to work on, as the next thing."

"Almost all security features are available out-of-the-box and can be deployed rapidly."

"The latest version that just came out at the first of October really was a powerful move in the right direction. I was very, very pleased with that because it allows now beginning to use information of things. We've got this IOT infrastructure that we can plug into, and for my use cases there are a lot of outdoor sensors that provide valuable information to my customers."

"The most important features of Layer7 API Management are the basic security functionality and validation checks."

More Layer7 API Management pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is licensing."

"The scalability is endless."

"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."

"It is a stable solution."

"I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."

"It is quite a useful tool. It is quite good with the validation of the spec. It works quite well in terms of errors and conformity to the OpenAPI standard. It is better than Visual Studio Code in terms of editing."

"The most valuable features are the collaboration between multiple teams and the control and distribution of specifications."

"One of the best features of SwaggerHub is how it allows me to create APIs and control the evolution of APIs within an organization."

More SwaggerHub pros

Cons

"I feel there is a lot to improve in terms of providing plug-and-play functionalities, as at the moment it requires a lot of coding in their specific language for implementing a medium-complexity use case."

"There is still room for improvement for the CA API Developer Portal. It is still not on par with what the competencies are."

"The product's initial setup phase is not very straightforward, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Layer7 API Management should give a clear roadmap of the product and where it is going, and they should not change the underlying layers."

"On the monitoring side, we need a better way to monitor it. CA has not given a clear understanding of what external tools we can use to do this."

"Some problems with response time."

"There are old algorithms that the tool does not support - and it shouldn't, in my opinion. But sometimes customers need old algorithms, from old use cases and old applications, migrated to the platform. At those times, there are hiccups that happen."

"The API Development tool can be made more user-friendly by providing folder properties."

More Layer7 API Management cons

"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."

"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 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."

"More integration and usability with the cloud microservices would be nice"

"The scalability aspect of SwaggerHub can be improved. It becomes a bit unreliable when the load is increased and isn't up to par with expectations for scalability."

"SwaggerHub could be improved with better integration for tools."

"It could be more intuitive compared to one of its competitors."

More SwaggerHub cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Layer7 API Management is reasonable compared to Apigee."

"Do not buy piecemeal."

"The price of Layer7 API Management is too high and should be reduced. However, it is a good solution in the market."

"Be aware of additional licenses for your warm standby. Ensure you get plenty of non-production licenses."

"For what we are after, the pricing is okay. It is competitive."

"We weren't comfortable with the pricing of licensing. It was slightly more expensive than its competitors."

"Layer7 API Management is cheaper than Apigee."

"Licenses are required to operate the product, but I don't know much about the validity periods attached to it."

More Layer7 API Management pricing and cost advice

"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%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Layer7 API Management?

The solution's technical support is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Layer7 API Management?

Pricing is more than average. While I am used to Layer7 API Management ( /products/layer7-api-management-reviews ), seeing other products makes the tool's pricing seem high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?

Broadcom's push for upgrades from version nine to ten, ten to 10.3, and onwards to twelve needs improvement in migration processes, especially with service dependencies. The migration path sometime...

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What do you like most about SwaggerHub?

The tool's most valuable feature is licensing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SwaggerHub?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SwaggerHub?

I started using SwaggerHub in its previous version, SmartMiner, with a tool called SoapUI. I used it to create mock web services to test web services and create test scripts and mock APIs. This usa...

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Comparisons

Apigee vs Layer7 API Management

Compared 31% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Layer7 API Management

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Layer7 API Management

Compared 12% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs Layer7 API Management

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Layer7 API Management

Compared 8% of the time

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Microsoft Azure API Management vs SwaggerHub

Compared 27% of the time

Apigee vs SwaggerHub

Compared 19% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs SwaggerHub

Compared 10% of the time

Postman vs SwaggerHub

Compared 7% of the time

Stoplight vs SwaggerHub

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Layer7 API Management

April 2025

Download Layer7 API Management product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

April 2025

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Also Known As

CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway

No data available

Overview

Layer7 API Management is a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to securely expose, manage, and monetize their APIs.

It provides features such as API gateway, developer portal, analytics, and security to ensure seamless integration and control over API traffic.

With Layer7 API Management, businesses can streamline their API operations and drive innovation.

Broadcom

SwaggerHub is an integrated API Development platform, built for teams, that brings the core capabilities of the Swagger framework to design, build, document and deploy APIs. SwaggerHub enables development teams to collaborate and coordinate the entire lifecycle of an API with the flexibility to integrate with the toolset of your choice.

SmartBear

Sample Customers

1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Oracle 4. Salesforce 5. SAP 6. Cisco 7. Dell 8. HP 9. Adobe 10. VMware 11. Accenture 12. Capgemini 13. Deloitte 14. PwC 15. Ernst & Young 16. Infosys 17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) 18. Wipro 19. Cognizant 20. HCL Technologies 21. Tech Mahindra 22. Fujitsu 23. Hitachi 24. NEC 25. NTT Data 26. Ericsson 27. Nokia 28. Siemens 29. AT&T 30. Verizon 31. Vodafone 32. Orange

Sonic, Zuora, Woolworths, CrowdFlower

Buyer's Guide

Layer7 API Management vs. SwaggerHub

April 2025

Free Report: Layer7 API Management vs. SwaggerHub

Find out what your peers are saying about Layer7 API Management vs. SwaggerHub and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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