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Layer7 API Management pros and cons

Vendor: Broadcom

4.2 out of 5

112 reviews
90% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Layer7 API Management is recognized for its flexible custom policy creation, rapid API development, and comprehensive security features. It supports scalability across regions but demands significant coding and faces migration challenges. Despite excellent support, Broadcom's services need enhancement. Existing integration limitations affect enterprise use, and the high cost prompts clients to explore alternatives. Buyers should consider the balance between Layer7's capabilities and its challenges, especially during upgrades.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Layer7 API Management offers flexible custom policy creation and impressive scalability.

Security is a key feature, with out-of-the-box options to protect data and prevent attacks.

The integration capabilities and ease of use make it straightforward for developers to build and manage APIs.

The system supports a wide range of protocols beyond HTTP, including JMS and FTP.

Layer7 API Management is highly stable and offers excellent technical support, rated highly by users.

CONS

Layer7 API Management requires significant IT knowledge for implementation and is known for its complex setup that could be streamlined.

The API developer portal in Layer7 API Management lacks maturity and user-friendliness, with needed improvements in its features and integration capabilities.

Layer7 API Management's high cost is a concern for clients, who are seeking more cost-effective alternatives.

Integration with a broader range of protocols and better alignment with modern cloud-native environments is necessary to enhance Layer7 API Management.

Migration processes for Layer7 API Management upgrades are challenging, especially with service dependencies, requiring a more seamless transition strategy.

Layer7 API Management Pros review quotes

IT Mobile/Web Solution Delivery Manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 24, 2015

It allows you to much more rapidly expose enterprise services to front-end applications, such as mobile and web.

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Manager, IT Security & IT Office of the CIO at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 30, 2015

It provides a simple endpoint for applications to call and for customers to call, so it reduces a lot of the complications of API services.

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Manager - API Management at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 30, 2015

As the APIs are built and published and made available to developers, we can build applications on top of those APIs in days and weeks as opposed to months.

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Layer7 API Management

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Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

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VP, EIM Data Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 17, 2015

The most valuable aspects for us are the security features, such as OAuth and access control, and it's a flexible tool that performs well.

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Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 23, 2016

Overall, it's a great tool and they keep building in more and more capabilities.

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Chief Engineer (R&D for VoIP, Networking and P2P) at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 18, 2015

The API gateway is a great solution.

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Expert Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 19, 2015

Security is the most valuable feature for us.

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Team Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 16, 2015

Layer 7 was top-of-class in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester, and all that stuff, so I did the selection process there and looked at a couple of different competitors.

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Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 4, 2016

It is flexible in how it creates custom policies and uses builds with impressive methods.

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Head of Sportsbook Delivery at Gala Coral Interactive

Feb 8, 2016

Buy the tool. It's fantastic.

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Layer7 API Management Cons review quotes

IT Mobile/Web Solution Delivery Manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 24, 2015

The products developer portals can be better.

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Manager, IT Security & IT Office of the CIO at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 30, 2015

One item that we’ve had discussions – and they’ve fixed some of it – you had to buy extra products, specifically the CA Mobile API Gateway, to get certain types of token support even though you didn’t need that product for anything else.

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Manager - API Management at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 30, 2015

There’s a developer portal that is used to document your APIs that is woefully behind the times, in terms of being able to provide a really good robust experience for the developers consuming your APIs.

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Layer7 API Management

Free Report: Layer7 API Management Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

VP, EIM Data Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 17, 2015

The initial setup was complex and difficult mainly because we didn’t have heavy Linux support guys.

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Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 23, 2016

I was hoping that there would be some deeper dive Gateway training than their two day workshop and the self-paced study provided.

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Chief Engineer (R&D for VoIP, Networking and P2P) at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 18, 2015

It's not stable. I want to publish new APIs with a socket, but it’s not stable enough for this.

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Expert Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 19, 2015

The UI is very dated.

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Team Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nov 16, 2015

Because of our experience with our cloud-hosting provider's image requirements versus what CA provided them, I think an area of improvement would be additional form factors for virtualization.

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Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 4, 2016

Provide complete documentation with examples of usage on its build in assertion/function.

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Head of Sportsbook Delivery at Gala Coral Interactive

Feb 8, 2016

The only area I'd say there could be some improvement is some of the documentation perhaps, some of the release notes are not the best.

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