Microsoft Azure API Management Reviews

Azure API Management is an API gateway that can be used for different purposes, for example, to monetize APIs. We also use it for logging and security purposes such as performing authorization.

Azure API Management cuts out a lot of concerns that developers have. Developers can leave concerns like authorization, authentication, tokens, or any data shaping layer for their APIs to the API gateway or APM service. They can then focus on creating APIs and functionality that matter for the business.

Support for GraphQL could be better. We work with different standards, but at the moment, it only supports GraphQL as a specification. However, support for GraphQL, which is a different communication specification, needs to improve.

I have been using it for at least six to seven years. It is a cloud service, so it is the latest version from Microsoft.

It is a stable solution. 

It is a scalable solution. You can add more computing power to your APM gateway. It also gives you the ability to have VNet integrations with your on-prem. It is one of the leading products in the API management space.

It is not just software for users but software to handle requests. For example, for a B2C e-commerce store, all requests that users make from within the store pass through this API gateway. So it is defined by the number of requests to the API gateway, not by the number of actual users who use it. If you look at the number of requests, it would be a lot from all the different systems we have within Pampers.

The support for the GraphQL standard could be better. But in general, the support falls under the micro agreement you have with Microsoft. We personally have not encountered any specific issues with regard to contacting Microsoft support because something isn't working. But I believe this would fall under your enterprise agreement with Microsoft.

The initial setup is straightforward. Setting up an instance of Azure API Management in the cloud is as simple as setting up Azure. It would probably take around 30 minutes to spin up the service, and you can use it. However, using the gateway in your projects is an ongoing process. If you just want to set up a gateway, it will probably be quick and easy.

When it comes to the deployment process, it's a cloud solution, so you can use infrastructure as code using Azure Visor or ARM templates or follow different infrastructure support solutions to be able to deploy the solution on your own public cloud subscription.

You would need knowledge of Azure to deploy and maintain it in the IT room. Depending on your model, if you have different integrations with, for example, on-prem integration, or network-level integration with your on-prem network, it will be a bit more complex than it is.

ROI depends on how you see the value it adds to your APIs. If you have a strategy where you monetize your API, you can create ROI attempts. Most of the time, where we work in companies, it is more of an internal policy or security guidance that we need to have an API gateway, especially for purposes like spike testing or different policies. So we haven't done something like an ROI analysis on the API gateway.

The pricing model depends on how you use it. There are different tiers of API management: a standard tier, a developer tier, and a premium tier, and each of these tiers will have different features. I think the premium tier can start somewhere around 2000 euros a month. 

The developer tier is free to use, but the standard tier could also be around 500 euros a month. So there are solutions that are not that cheap, and the cost would increase with the additional features you want. The more enterprise-level features you go to, the more expensive it gets.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

API management is a solution that anyone with a public-facing endpoint or an API should consider. Multiple APM solutions are in the market, like Google's Apigee, Azure API Management, and others. They can be expensive, so it depends on your API's value and the financial loss you could encounter in case of security attacks. These different aspects should be considered when using an API management gateway.

I am a software architect. The organization upgraded to API premium in order for us to be able to use virtual networks and security growth. We migrate things from Google Cloud. We use the solution to have an API that is calling internal resources to expose data on the internet. Furthermore, we also use API Management for partners and mobile apps.

Other than the cost, it is difficult to customize. The external policies are impossible to look at and configure.

The deployment time is too long. It is difficult to have multiple authentication mechanisms and authorization mechanisms at the same time.

Microsoft Azure API Management has not improved since I last used it in 2017.

By using Azure you are forced to use their technologies. For example, I wanted to use PostgreSQL, but I could only use SQL server. I also wanted to use Java or TypeScript, but the only option is .NET, which we do not use. They are very difficult to collaborate with as the solution does not integrate with other products. 

They do not offer extensions, if you want to use a Swagger extension you have to use XMLs, which are very complicated.

Another concern is that Microsoft Azure often does not have enough Linux machines in the region. If you want to deploy on Linux, and there are not enough, they will tell you to deploy in another region, or it has to be on the Windows server instead.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for two years.

The solution is a bit more stable than it was in 2017. It is reliable.

Azure API is scalable. We have 20 people working with this product as a gateway to the outside world.

Technical support with Microsoft is poorer than AWS, but better than the one from Google Cloud. They reply too late. We had premium technical support at one point, however, they did not reply with anything we needed at the time. There is a concern with the knowledge base as well as the procedure in how they are instructed to reply.

I would rate technical support a three out of five.

Neutral

We switched to Microsoft Azure API Management because two years ago, someone in the organization decided to use this solution. I would never have made that decision.

I have had prior experience with API Gateway and Apigee.

The solution takes one hour to deploy. Like everything on Azure, it is difficult to create the deployment scripts because the ARM and Bicep that they use are awful. Deployment is very complex.

I would rate the experience of the setup of Azure API Management a two out of five.

The solution doesn't require maintenance as it is cloud-based. However, it does require monitoring.

The upgrade to Azure API costs 2000 euros per month, per instance, per unit. Our finance department asked us to find cost reductions. After conducting an analysis, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible unless we sacrificed security.

Azure API Management is the most expensive solution on the market. AWS is at least four times less expensive. Any price comparison needs to include the additional cost of the security you will need to purchase from Microsoft, which comes from their premium plan. The only way to reduce the cost is to sacrifice security when using Microsoft data.

I rate the pricing a one out of five.

The other option is API Apigee. It is the best in class and less expensive. Its deployment to API Gateway from AWS is easy and fast. 

In AWS API Management you can build everything from open API specification files. AWS has Swagger extensions that are built in that can define everything in Swagger.

I would switch solutions if I could. 

Any organization looking to implement Microsoft Azure API Management should look at other alternatives. Be cautious of the marketing behind Azure products. Once you decide on your solution, it is difficult to change.

I would rate this product a four out of 10 overall.

We have several layers in our infrastructure. Some of our layers are more connector-based and interfacing with our systems of record and outsource service providers. Right now, we use Microsoft Azure API Management for that. We're now deciding what to use for the process layer, which is more orchestration and data-mapping-based.

If you were truly a .NET shop and truly Microsoft cloud-centric, this is the most cloud-native offering, and there are some benefits to that. It's really easy to use for simple passthrough APIs. It feels more modern and compatible with people with .NET skill sets, and that's a strong selling point.

The solution's data mapping and orchestration are very code-intensive or require callouts to external systems. They seem suboptimal for the more complex use cases.

A simple installation is very easy, and I rate it ten out of ten. However, it goes to the other extreme when you try to do complex use cases, like orchestration, aggregation, and data mapping. For such scenarios, I rate the installation a five out of ten because of the code intensity and maintenance you would incur.

The solution appears cheaper because it's a cloud SaaS model. Its benefit is that you can use a small amount, and it'll appear very cheap. However, once you scale up to your full volume, it'll be more expensive because it'll incorporate a bunch of different services that are holistically more expensive than the alternative.

There are around ten key security characteristics I look for in a solution. On the surface, my analysis so far seems to indicate that Microsoft Azure API Management has the ability to deliver on those parameters. Given the close relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI, we hope the solution will evolve more quickly and incorporate AI more fully, but we don't know for sure.

Our goal is to create a composable financial institution. We are trying to get developers not to be the bottleneck anymore but to be more agile, to grow market share, and to grow national reach. To do all those things, you need very agile, world-class APIs. There are ways to make both work for that. We'll have to evaluate which one is the shorter path.

I would recommend the solution for cloud-native Microsoft .NET shops with simple API requirements. However, I would not recommend it for multi-cloud, larger shops with more diverse or complicated use cases.

Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

Microsoft Azure API Management is used in our organization to support the API lifecycle. 

It's a valuable tool for API lifecycle management. Another Azure offering is API gateway, which is used to enable the APIs, publish them for internal or external customers, API scaling and other typical use cases. 

Microsoft Azure API Management also has security or threshold features that monitor and control API access through a subscription-based model. 

Documentations for implementing certain product features are very difficult to find. Information regarding some features of Microsoft Azure API Management cannot be found through searching on the Internet; it can be understood, discovered, and learned hands-on while using the solution. Documentations for the product should include examples of implementation. 

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for four years. 

It's a highly stable product. 

Microsoft Azure API Management can be easily scaled. 

Users can contact customer support whenever there are any issues with the product's stability and features.  But in our company, we never faced any issues with the product for which we had to seek help from the support team. The documentation from Microsoft helps our company to solve issues on our own. 

Microsoft Azure API Management can be easily deployed. But if you want the API pipelines to associate with the API codes, sometimes it can be challenging and the need to write custom code might arise before the solution's deployment. The Azure DevOps pipelines are not straightforward, just like some other Azure services.

The deployment time depends upon the service availed and the artifacts, including API, policy file, and other integrations. Each API deployment takes around five minutes with Microsoft Azure API Management. The deployment duration majorly depends upon the ideal pipeline building and its configuration. A team of professionals is required for the solution's deployment and maintenance. When a maintenance need arises with the product, a professional can spend half a day implementing it. 

The ROI depends upon the purpose of adopting Microsoft Azure API Management in the first place. For basic usage like API and gateway management and publishing, in that case the product's ROI will be high.

Proper configuration of the solution, implementation strategy and correct scaling tier selection are other factors that influence the ROI. For instance, if you avail yourself of a higher tier of scalability than required and there are only a few users of your API, the ROI might not be satisfying. 

The product can seem very costly if the use case for Microsoft Azure API Management demands high usage and scalability. I would rate the pricing a six out of ten. It's an expensive solution. 

When Microsoft Azure API Management is compared with IBM's competitor product, I would always choose Microsoft Azure API Management because of its user-friendliness, easy integrations with other Azure tools and other extensive features. 

The availing of API protection features depends upon the customer requirements of our organization. If customers want the API to be secure and restrict accessibility then a subscription model is often integrated into the API where users will gain access to certain services upon payment.

If a customer will be dealing with sensitive data through their API, then only a few individuals will have access which is implemented through Microsoft Azure API Management. I would overall rate the product an eight out of ten.

I would advise others to check the documentation first as it allows you to test the product even before purchasing. Superior technical experts are not needed to operate Microsoft Azure API Management. It's an excellent learning product as one doesn't need to buy a license to start using Microsoft Azure API Management. 

Our use case for Microsoft Azure API Management is connecting banking systems to Bloomberg Services. We're also using the solution to connect internal services within the banking system, in particular, credit simulation.

Microsoft Azure API Management has many valuable features. One is the developer portal, that's very useful for teams. The tool also provides layers of security. I also found the caching, automatic documentation, and version management functionalities of Microsoft Azure API Management most valuable.

I like Microsoft Azure API Management because it works pretty well.

An area for improvement in Microsoft Azure API Management is deployment, in particular, the deployment of versions in Oryx. The development to production instance isn't adequate for me and needs to be improved.

To explain further, the specification for the API needs to be deployed from development to production through scripts, and the scripts need to be done manually or need a lot of manual intervention. The process isn't automatic or click-and-point, so you need a technician. 

Microsoft Azure API Management lacks automation, which is another area for improvement.

In the next  Microsoft Azure API Management release, I want to see the automatic deployment of its versions.

I have three years of experience with Microsoft Azure API Management.

Microsoft Azure API Management is a very stable tool.

Microsoft Azure API Management is highly scalable.

I contacted the technical support team for Microsoft Azure API Management just once. It was for a minor technical issue, and I got the response within the expected timeframe.

On a scale of one to five, support is a four for me.

I worked briefly with Amazon API Gateway but not as thoroughly as with Microsoft Azure API Management.

Amazon API Gateway is a much more technical solution and even less user-friendly than Microsoft Azure API Management.

I switched to Microsoft Azure API Management because the company decided to change its environment to Azure, so the obvious choice was Microsoft Azure API Management.

Microsoft Azure API Management is effortless to set up. It has a brilliant setup.

It took me just two weeks to set up Microsoft Azure API Management.

I'd rate its setup a four out of five.

Microsoft did an excellent job with the available documentation for Microsoft Azure API Management, and the setup process was quite simple, so I implemented the solution without Microsoft's intervention.

Microsoft Azure API Management isn't the kind of tool that directly impacts the business. It just makes the integration of different applications easier, so in that sense, it pays for itself within six months.

The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure API Management is publicly available and goes from a developer edition that costs $26 to $30 per month. It may have changed, but it's in the neighborhood of $30 per month. I believe there's also the enterprise edition, which is highly capable and costs $2,500 per month.

If you want to use Microsoft Azure API Management, there are no additional fees. Still, of course, within an enterprise environment, you don't use just Microsoft Azure API Management because you need networking or virtual networks. Still, that comes with the territory because if you want to develop solutions in Azure, you need to buy services, servers, networks, etc. Regarding the usage per se of Microsoft Azure API Management, you don't need to pay anything else. You pay for it if you need it and then have to configure it within the Azure environment. Aside from the standard licensing cost, there are no hidden costs from Microsoft Azure API Management.

Pricing for the solution is competitive, so I'd rate it as six out of ten. If the scale is one to five, it's a three because it's the market average.

I'm using Microsoft Azure API Management, though I've stopped active development. I'm just a user of the solution at the moment.

As Microsoft Azure API Management is a cloud tool, it's automatically updated, so I'm always using its latest version.

The solution doesn't require any maintenance.

Seven people used Microsoft Azure API Management within the company in the past: me, the development team, and the production team. Right now, there's reduced usage, with two to three actively developing Microsoft Azure API Management, then one that handles the maintenance by checking to see if the solution still works, and that's it.

I advise anyone looking into implementing Microsoft Azure API Management to invest time in learning the functionality. It takes around a month to invest, plus a good developer, so you can understand all the quirks and functionality the tool can provide, which is quite a lot. Once you have the knowledge or understanding, you can add much value to the development and integration process through Microsoft Azure API Management.

My rating for Microsoft Azure API Management is nine out of ten.

My company is a customer of Microsoft Azure API Management.

I am an end user of Microsoft Azure API Management. We integrate Azure API Management in our IT infrastructure as we already have an Azure cloud. API is already readily integratable in Azure because Azure is a cloud platform, and API Management comes with it. Our applications are in Azure cloud.

Azure API Management's service monitoring is not as good as an independent product used for service monitoring. There are dedicated products for service monitoring, so we prefer those dedicated products because the inbuilt capabilities are not exhaustive or comprehensive.

The simplicity to learn and apply using API Management is valuable. Another advantage is the ease of integration with Azure.

Expansion to global regions is a point for improvement, as licensing is costly. A new installation in a different region requests a new subscription. For test management, preproduction management, and production, all require separate subscriptions, resulting in higher costs. 

Additionally, only the premium subscription allows for private IPs. Even for lower environments like test environments, a premium subscription is required, which is limiting.

I have been using the solution for close to two years.

I rate the stability eight out of ten.

I rate scalability seven out of ten.

I rate their technical support eight out of ten.

Positive

We previously used Kong. Our organization chose Azure as the cloud platform for its applications, preferring products that come from Microsoft and are already available on Azure, so we switched to Microsoft Azure API Management.

Initial installation would take only a few hours. Setting up the entire environment took about two to three working days.

Initially, it appeared to be a low-cost solution, but the need for separate subscriptions for every environment and sometimes a high-end subscription for lower environments has increased the cost significantly. The solution seemed cheap initially. However, it ended up being more expensive than expected.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure API Management to others. It's cost-effective for medium to small-scale organizations that do not need a global presence. However, larger global organizations might find better alternatives.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management as a consultant, primarily recommending it for enterprises.

The solution helps in securing AI projects by providing governance and control through API management.

The most valuable feature is its role as a linchpin in AI Hub architecture, enhancing data handling.

The pricing model needs improvement, as some enterprise features are expensive.

I have been dealing with Microsoft Azure API Management for a few years.

Generally, I am satisfied with the performance, scalability, and technical support.

The performance and scalability of the solution are good.

The technical support quality could be better, although the issue is not significant.

Positive

I did not work with anything similar before Microsoft API Management.

I did not face any issues during the initial setup.

I did not face any challenges with the implementation.

Some of the enterprise features are quite expensive. A better pricing model is needed.

I recommend considering Kong if Microsoft API Management does not fit the budget.

I would recommend Microsoft Azure API Management to those on the Microsoft platform. If not on Azure, consider looking into Kong.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Microsoft Azure API Management is used for integration across multiple services, API marketplace solutions, and information exchange solutions.

The most valuable features of the solution are its importing and publishing.

The solution’s security and performance could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for four to five years.

I rate Microsoft Azure API Management an eight out of ten for stability.

Our clients for the solution are small, medium and enterprise businesses.

I rate Microsoft Azure API Management an eight out of ten for scalability.

Microsoft provides good premier support, but its general customer support is not that great.

Neutral

I rate Microsoft Azure API Management a seven out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

The solution can be deployed in five to ten minutes.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten.

Microsoft Azure API Management is a cloud-based solution. Microsoft Azure API Management is a flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use solution.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Azure API Management an eight out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Azure API Management to host APIs.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure API Management are the easy configuration and deployment with automation.

There is a limitation of 32 kb of data in the APIs. Having the limitation increase would be a benefit.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for approximately four years.

This is the best service we have used within Azure and it has high availability.

I rate the stability of Microsoft Azure API Management a ten out of ten.

The scalability of Microsoft Azure API Management is great. We only have some issues with the high costs.

We have approximately 100 people using the solution.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Azure API Management a ten out of ten.

We have a dedicated team that supports us from Microsoft. It is excellent.

I rate the support from Microsoft Azure API Management a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have not used other similar solutions.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure API Management is straightforward. However, we had an issue with the DSTV upgrade. It has its own logic of what to decide. 

The full implementation process of the solution takes time, approximately six hours.

To deploy Microsoft Azure API Management, we utilize TerraForm to incorporate modules that cover all departments. These modules have already been created, so we simply provide the necessary parameters and execute the pipeline. Consequently, we do not rely on the Azure portal for this process and instead rely solely on Azure automation.

I rate the initial setup of Microsoft Azure API Management a nine out of ten.

The solution is highly expensive. Our customers worry about the costs. The price should be a lot less. 

We are using the premium license.

I rate the price of Microsoft Azure API Management a seven out of ten.

The solution has provided us with a great overall solution in many areas, such as security, deployment, and integrations.

I rate Microsoft Azure API Management a nine out of ten.

Since we built our product around APM, our clients use it directly. They find APM to be a simple and straightforward solution that fulfills all their API management needs.

Our clients use APM because it's a SaaS-based solution that comes with Azure Stack-managed services, making it easy for us to use and fulfill all their use cases.

We are actually partners. We built our product on top of APM and provide it to our customers.

API gateway-related features were fulfilled by APIM. So those features, we are completely leveraging for our solution, like throttling. It is fair and easy. It's a low-code, no-code model of API hosting.

There is room for improvement in the user interface and workflow for hosting APIs, especially third-party APIs. 

Another area of improvement is the pricing model. The solution has an add-on cost, and if we want to leverage some of the features, we are forced to buy it. So, cost-wise, it's not ideal.

I have been working with this solution for one and a half years. There isn't really a specific version since it's a managed service in the cloud. However, with Apigee, there are different versions available, as it can be hosted on-premises. But for APM, it's only available in Azure as a managed service.

I would rate stability a nine out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. It can host it in different regions, and we can point to the same set of backups and try to expose the APIs. Our current customers are in the medium category that's why I rated scalability a nine. 

We have a strategic partner for technical support, and they are very responsive.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. Previously, we were using Apigee, so comparing it to that, it's cloud-specific and opens the gateway. So there were some challenges.

The deployment was quick. The deployment of this product was managed by a manager, so once you set it up, it has a quick turnaround time. 

We used the Azure deployment model and followed the recommended steps for posting the APIs, and also followed the Azure recommended layer for deployment.

Compared to Apigee, which is a one-time cost for on-prem, this solution is cloud-specific and a managed service. So cost-wise, it's comparatively expensive. I would rate it eight out of ten, where one is low and ten is high. 

Moreover, there are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. We have to purchase four to five managed services around API to use it. For example, we use the express route and key vault, and we have to purchase those features along with API.

We explored different options and found that APM was the most suitable for our scenarios.

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten. The reason is, as I mentioned earlier, it is best suited for our use case. One reason is that the product is only available in Azure. So, we are leveraging multiple managed services and building the product around that. Additionally, we select it according to the customer's needs. The hosting API workflow needs to be improved.