Layer7 API Management Reviews

The primary use case for Layer7 API Management is patient services, such as patient care and health care services, where patients would like to check appointment details and reports on mobile applications.

Another use case for the product is sharing the data with external organizations related to healthcare.

What I found most valuable in Layer7 API Management is that you can launch the API from the gateway quickly and securely, making it less complicated to deploy APIs.

I also like that Layer7 API Management has a good portal and dashboards and that the dashboards show you statistics regarding how many people used the API, etc.

Layer7 API Management could have a live API creator feature, so my team can easily create APIs. Right now, the product doesn't have that feature.

I've been working with Layer7 API Management for six months.

Regarding stability, Layer7 API Management is an eight out of ten.

Layer7 API Management is highly scalable. The product is easy to scale horizontally and vertically. It has good scalability, so it's an eight out of ten.

The technical support team of Layer7 API Management is an eight out of ten.

Positive

I'm rating the initial setup for Layer7 API Management as eight out of ten because it was easy to do.

Deploying the product took two months.

Before deploying Layer7 API Management, my company studied the existing landscape through the customer guide and did a feasibility study on the requirements, such as the APIs, volume of transactions, etc. The company then planned the transaction methodically and then secured the license. Upon installation, my team used it, got the certification, and implemented Layer7 API Management in a highly available environment. Next, my company deployed the product in a production environment, did the configurations, created the documentation, did an overall training, and then pushed the product to live status.

It's too early to compute for Layer7 API Management ROI. I need a few more months before calculating the ROI.

Pricing for Layer7 API Management is excellent, so it's an eight out of ten. The product is less expensive than other solutions. Layer7 API Management charges you based on the number of transactions, so the enterprise-level pricing my company got was excellent.

My company pays for Layer7 API Management yearly. It only pays for the standard licensing fees.

My company provides Layer7 API Management to customers.

I'm working on the latest version of the product.

Six to eight team members handled the Layer7 API Management deployment. Some worked on the data, while some worked on the network, hardware, and software configurations.

Approximately two hundred to three hundred people use Layer7 API Management, particularly clinicians, nurses, and patients.

Layer7 API Management only requires a little maintenance. It only has one upgrade every six months, and my company has an affiliate that handles the maintenance, especially severity three issues. My company will address any level one or two issues.

My rating for Layer7 API Management is eight out of ten.

My company is a partner and reseller of Layer7 API Management.

Layer7 API Management can be deployed on the cloud and on-premise.

We are using Layer7 API Management to expose APIs and to do security checks, which is similar to a reverse proxy.

The most important features of Layer7 API Management are the basic security functionality and validation checks. Additionally, it integrates well.

Layer7 API Management could improve by assing more portal-based capabilities.

I have been using Layer7 API Management for approximately two years.

Layer7 API Management is stable.

We have four people using this solution in my company.

The solution is scalable.

The support from Layer7 API Management is proactive.

I prefer Layer7 API Management over Apigee. Apigee has a portal-based capability which is better than Layer7 API Management.

The initial setup of Layer7 API Management is not complex. The process took approximately 10 to 15 minutes.

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

This is a good solution. However, it would be ideal if they had a technical team because there is a need for some basic coding knowledge. It requires comprehensive Java knowledge.

I rate Layer7 API Management an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for security as well as for monetization. I'm a certified CA API management professional and a user of this solution. We are vendors of Layer7.

I like the simplicity of developing APIs.

The development portal could be improved. Following Layer7's acquisition of Broadcom, the technical support and sales teams have not been good and both those areas need to be improved. I'd also like to see the latest code support with open API specs and JavaScript which is lacking. 

I've been using this solution for six years. 

This is definitely a stable solution. 

The product is scalable, up or down, according to your needs and there are no issues. We receive somewhere between 30,000-60,000 hits per day. 

Technical support is responsive, but since the merge with Broadcom the support has not been as good. They're not interested in getting on a call to quickly try to resolve an issue.

Neutral

We also use API Apigee which is more complex. You have to know XML coding and tags, for example. With Layer7 you drag and drop assertions and name them. With Apigee, after selecting the policies, you need to write some logic into it.

The initial setup is very simple. It's straightforward and you can just go through the mock ups step by step and implement. I do the deployment myself, it's very simple. 

The cost depends on how many licenses you are trying to acquire. There is 
a perpetual licensing fee, and then you pay annually for support and maintenance. The price is competitive with other solutions. 

We use the product for HTTP traffic. It supports DNS and FDP protocols. 

The product supports more than just HTTP protocols; it also caters to JMS and FTP protocols.

The solution should prioritize ease of use and align with the growing trend of cloud-native environments. Customers are increasingly leaning towards cloud-native solutions, and while you can configure your topology in the cloud as a private solution, having a more inherently cloud-native approach is crucial.

Layer7 API Management also should feature built-in policies to minimize the need for extensive code writing. It needs to include more plug-ins. 

I have been using the product since 2018. 

I haven't seen many issues with the product's stability. 

I rate the product's scalability a seven out of ten. 

Layer7 API Management's deployment was straightforward. 

Layer7 API Management is cheaper than Apigee. 

I would choose Layer7 API Management's alternatives since it is not current. I rate it a five out of ten. 

It serves our development purposes, enabling the connection of both external and internal clients, for example.

It's a comprehensive tool that allows us to perform all the necessary tasks in one place. With other middleware API management tools, we might need multiple tools and layers to achieve the same results. This tool provides a single platform for managing security, real transformation, connectivity, and development, eliminating the need for additional add-ons.

It's quite satisfactory. However, I don't focus much on the cost perspective, but 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.

Currently, we don't have any major issues, and any past issues we encountered were promptly resolved. Perhaps in terms of improvement, we could explore more robust connectivity options, but for our current needs, it's been solid. As for my company, we might consider migration, and there are tools like GMU migration, provided by the same vendor, which could potentially help us in that regard.

I have been using Layer7 API Management for the past eight years.

It is stable, as per our observations.

I've been primarily utilizing the on-premises version, and it has proven to be scalable as we've added more clients. However, I haven't yet ventured into the cloud aspect, so there's potential for further exploration in that regard.

It's not overly challenging. The documentation is quite comprehensive, and the support from the dot command is also reliable. Overall, it's a comfortable experience, and I haven't encountered any significant issues or concerns.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

We use a combination of Denodo and Layer7 API Management. The APIs are developed on Layer7 and then exported through Denodo. Layer7 provides the security layer, while Denodo facilitates data on demand. That combination is handy, and most organizations have a similar setup. That data is exported to API. The data modeling is done on Denodo and exposed through policies developed on Layer7 API Management.

It's good to have a tool for integrating data between organizations and applications. The combination of Denodo and Layer7 is beneficial. I feel like Layer7 would not be sufficient because most APIs need data on demand. We need to provide data on demand on top of some layers without going back into the native data systems. 

That will help developers not tax something on the line. We just develop on top of those databases or data layers. You prepare a logical data layer to provide an API exposed through Layer7. Using Layer7 and Teams or different applications can consume those data easily. 

API Management makes dealing with APIs easier. It'll help you to move ahead on your API application journey. The solution allows developers to create more advanced security policies

I feel like Apigee's API product is more interactive. You can drag and drop with those, but it's a little more difficult in Layer7. It's less user-friendly compared to that Apigee product. However, the overall user experience is okay. 

We have been using API Management for three years. 

Our deployment is stable. The company was using API Management before I joined. It's pretty stable and people are developing their APIs on it. The integration Layer7 provides works well in our environment.

API Management is scalable. We did some horizontal scaling and adopted a clustered approach, with two or three nodes behind that. We have that kind of scalability in our environment, and we have a hard drive. We're processing millions of jobs a day that are handled well with the cluster setup we have in place.

Solutions technical support actually falls. I mean, in our area, we have to get a team around it, so that some of the APIs won't get fail and the possibilities of capturing the records. Second thing is to deliver the migration of the APIs to higher environment. So this falls API, I mean, under support task and that too includes performing lifecycle management, upgrading the API versions. So last year we did from nine to ten. So this changes are there in the bucket of support and we do handle around that part of task.

I rate Layer7 API Management eight out of 10. There's a steep learning curve, and I have spent two or three years looking at the documentation that comes with it. It's a bit difficult compared to some other products like Apigee.

I am an Enterprise API architect and we are one of the biggest conglomerate organizations in Dubai. We have a lot of retail businesses,  automotive businesses, and other interests. What we are doing is using the API Management to build out a proper, consistent API layer for our legacy systems and microservices as well. That will enable us to expand our reach in digital channels. This will also help us serve the API Products for 3rd part consumptions.

We are already using Dell Boomi in our organization for ESB purposes and are more focused on that development right now and hope to do more with Layer7 in the future.  

Layer7 is the most important step in our Application Modernization strategy. We envision to create an Open Architecture which allows us to adapt to ever-changing market needs. It is a key enabler in decoupling the core applications from the digital channels thereby giving us the flexibility to build the plug n play architectural landscape. 

Because we have only used the gateway part of the Layer7 solution, we have not explored a lot of the potential and capabilities in detail. It would be premature to go into details about what we may use or discover will be useful in the future. We still have to go into production. Feedback in terms of usability or the broader scope of features is not possible. The product has more capabilities that we were looking for in an API gateway in terms of security as well. We plan to incorporate all its advantages.  

The gateway and security features were the two most important requirements for us and the product has definitely met our expectations. That is currently most valuable to us.  

Upcoming features that we will soon incorporate will be Developer Portal, Live API Creator and Blazemeter.

In terms of what could be improved, I think they do not have a good enough knowledge base on setting up the API Management Layer, especially on Azure using containers. In the corporate world, this solution is becoming very popular as we move forward.   

So something that I would like them to improve on is their information resources because we need more assistance / support from them to get our API Management Layer set up correctly on Azure. They still have a lot to do in this area in terms of support and building a community. But we have confidence, it would improve moving forward.  

When you talk about full API life cycle management, they lack inbuilt support of community forums as part of their offering which can be published to external developers. The forum can become an important hub for communication between our organization’s API Team and app developers who wish to use our APIs. Using the forums, developers will be able to post questions using the forum.

I think we are dealing with only a smaller part of the capabilities of Layer7 as we have just started using the gateway. So we are using it almost only as a gateway right now. We plan to broaden the scope and we are in the process of onboarding full API life cycle management as well. We only deployed it a few months back on the gateway level.  

We have not had many problems, but again, we are not testing under full, live production loads.  

We have not gotten far enough along to test the scalability of the product, but it was made for enterprise solutions so it should be readily scalable.  

From the support side, the Broadcom / CA Team has supported us well.

For APIs, we were using Broadcom API Gateway. We were using Dell Boomi iPaaS, we were using F5 load balancing, and a web application firewall. All of these components we have in our organization. We may be able to reduce the number of solutions.  

Broadcom is actually the same product as the CA Technologies API gateway. CA (Computer Associates) was bought out by Broadcom. So now the CA API is the Broadcom Layer7 management solution which they are updating and improving. We stayed with the product when the product changed names.  

The guys we used to do the installation were from a local UAE team. Their experience on Azure is limited. But at this point it is fine. I think we are more-or-less satisfied that what we have now is done correctly. 

We used combination of internal and external team because we thought it would save time and effort.  

When it comes to pricing, I think we cracked a good deal with Broadcom on Layer7. It may be because of the COVID-19 situation. Whatever the reason, from a pricing perspective we have found the solution to be a good deal for us.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Layer7 as a nine. Right now it is a bit premature to rate the product overall but in terms of the disappointment in the community support opportunities, I would rate it as a seven as of now.  

I think with the situation that we are in and with the current economic atmosphere, there is definitely a reason for those looking for an API solution to also consider open-source products. Instead of going with the proprietary products, sometimes considerations depend on the size of the organization and the budget. Every organization should first analyze what they need. If they need an enterprise-class product definitely Broadcom Layer7 is a good solution. But if an organization can manage their needs with an open-source product, or the team has a good knowledge of the APIs and the ability to customize, then I think that open-source can be a viable option. As long as the product is sufficient to fit the needs, moving forward with some sort of an open-source product is just as well.  

We are using Layer7 API Management as an enterprise service bus, ESB, and B2B security gateway.

There is not a comparable solution on the market to Layer7 API Management. It has been useful for our organization.

The most valuable feature of Layer7 API Management is that their policy is really easy to develop and it is flexible.

The UI design could be improved in the next release.

I have been using Layer7 API Management for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

Layer7 API Management is scalable.

We have two people in my company that uses this solution. We are will need to train more people.

We are attempting to expand usage but because we cannot find resources, we will try to change to some other product. We were using it for a long time. It's a little difficult to transfer every feature that we have, but we are still open to finding another product, such as NGINX. We are on the POC of NGINX, but it keeps changing. The organization is trying to stop using this product as we have a lack of resources, but right now we found that some of the features cannot transform easily. Then we want to expand, I'm confused as well about what we are doing.

The initial installation was straightforward. We split the release and the patching takes a few minutes with a few mouse clicks. We automate most of the process.

We have an in-house team that does the implementation.

There is an annual license for the use of this solution. I think we are paying for some support maintenance fees, included in that license. I don't know how it works. They should provide more information.

We have been evaluating NGINX. I have found NGINX has a better UI than Layer7 API Management. Most of the features that NGINX has are already supported in Layer7 API Management.

We have found it's really difficult to find the right resource in our Canadian market. It is more difficult to hire new developers who can support Layer7 API Management.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is if they have the right resource, this is a really nice product and I recommend it because it's really flexible and that they can build and customize with the vendor directly. I really am with this product.

I rate Layer7 API Management a nine out of ten.