Microsoft Azure API Management Reviews

In general, we use it for the front application, like the mobile banking application or some other service stuff. We found that it's easier to maintain these internet connections and so on, on the cloud.

In general, we started with Microsoft Azure Cloud as we needed a close integration with our internal or Office solution. In case of Microsoft, Azure Active Directory is easily integrated within the Microsoft platform, including Office. In particular, in API Management, used as front-end APIs, it's easy to manage. Now, we are looking ahead to the hosted solution, which is very nice. 

We use Microsoft due to the stability of the company. 

It's efficient enough and it's just enough for our needs to manage rules and so aforth for API management. We use it due to Microsoft's reputation. We need a stable provider. We cannot play with some providers. 

It is easy to set up. 

The solution is scalable. It is stable as a product as well. 

It's okay. It's not as good as Google. For instance, in Apigee, in Google.

One of the most important improvements for us would be if it supported the HTTP/3 version and new protocol over a quick connection. It's a relatively new standard since 2020. 

I've used the solution for about three years. 

It is a stable product. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash. The performance is good. 

While it is scalable, there is some costs involved with expanding. 

We have about 100 people using the solution at the company in terms of deployment. In terms of clients using the solution, that's in the millions. 

We have a premium subscription. We have a local company, a local Microsoft office. We do not have a problem with the support from Microsoft.

We used a CA solution before, and CA was sold to Broadcom and everything changed, politics and so and so. We had to disable CA platform due to the provider. We believe the same issues will not happen to Microsoft.

The initial setup is very easy. It's not complex at all. 

There is a special group that is  responsible for the support and implementation of the platform.

I'm aware of Google, or Apigee, and it's quite a robust product. 

We are a customer and end-user.

It is a subscription service. It's definitely not on-premises in our organization. We do have our core system on-premises, of course.

I would recommend the solution. People have to first understand the different types of subscriptions, however. There are four of them, developer, and intermediates, and then premium, and it's costly. That said, it's not that expensive. It's a very technical piece of software. I can say it's stable and it satisfies our needs. It's just a bit complex. 

I'd rate the solution eight 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. 

We have a couple of use cases for this  product. It's fully cloud-native and can handle telco distribution for end-to-end distribution management. Five or six years ago, we made a  fantastic product with microservices. I was responsible for rolling it out for a large telco in Qatar. They had no distribution or end-to-end visibility or platform. So we helped them to move to a cloud platform for their entire distribution and operation. The beauty of that product is when you look at the telco distribution standpoint your maybe five or ten thousand merchant ecosystem will be connected to that platform. It helps with generating several transactions in a minute or second. And it gives that kind of scalability in the back end. 

The other use case was for banking transactions. If you have your core banking platform that is legacy, if a user wants to bring in a lot of additional alternatives, they need to have some kind of a platform for enhancements. We made a cloud to bring some kind of their operations to the cloud. We made a transaction platform for them so that their merchants could access transactions.

The API management is very good. You have sophisticated dashboards that help you to understand what's really going on - in addition to whatever security layer that you can bring on top of that. It is easy to manage front and backend APIs.

You can put on your own security layer so that you know only the authorized people are accessing your back-end systems through the gateway. In addition to that, you have sophisticated dashboards and reporting for storage logs or logging. That is quite useful, specifically in the banking sector. 

You can limit items by parameters such as geography or private VPMs. 

You have different pricing tiers and pricing is based depending on the traffic. You can go to basic pricing if you like. Depending on your traffic, you have licensing options.

Microsoft manages everything so you can focus on building applications and deploying them.

The platform components are quite interesting. 

I'm not sure if there are certain areas needed for improvement. I haven't explored its shortcomings. So far, the requirements have been met.

Maybe the customization could be a bit better. 

My team found difficulty in migrating APIs from one platform to this platform. We could export and import properly. We made a complete API for a UAT environment, and when we moved the APIs, we ran into issues. 

They don't have a standard local IP. They only have a public IP.

I've used the solution for six to eight years or so. 

I'd rate the stability eight out of ten. It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution scales well. I'd rate it ten out of ten. It's easy to expand as needed. 

We have both medium-sized and enterprise-level customers. 

Technical support has been fine. We are happy with their level of support. 

Positive

I have worked with other competing products, such as Apigee and AWS.

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. I'd rate the ease of deployment eight out of ten.

The provisioning takes a couple of minutes. Then you need to do some programming. 

The pricing is reasonable. I'd rate the cost in terms of affordability seven out of ten. 

The premium tier is too expensive for medium-sized organizations. However, the local IP only is offered at the premium tier. 

I did not compare this solution to others since I was promoting Microsoft at the time. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. 

People should explore API management. You do get full control of your API, and from a security standpoint, you have a good understanding of the touchpoints and far more control of your traffic. You know who is accessing your services. Even if a company has legacy systems, it should have an API gateway in front of its legacy systems.

We went with Microsoft since we were Microsoft partners.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

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.

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.

We use the solution to manage the APIs of the legacy app in on-premises systems at our organization. We use the solution for security purposes. It lets us put restrictions on who can consume the APIs. Also, we can keep a check on the dashboard for requests and the health of the APIs.

We are using Azure API Management as a platform. We have a ServiceNow instance. We connect it to the internet to have an internal connection network through on-premises systems. Here, we need to expose our APIs to security. So we take the help of Azure API Management for security purposes. Also, we can use dashboards to get information about API requests.

The solution's most valuable feature is the ability to create policies. You can customize the business and security rules directly with it instead of creating new systems for managing the same. With this policy, you can develop anything with them.

It is a good solution. The latest versions of Azure API Management have included many new features. At the moment, our APIs don't follow the RESTful concepts. So, we face a challenge at the initial stage of the project. We need to get cache policy requests. We have to develop rules internally for cache requests with the policy methods. So many other companies must be needing this feature. They should work on it in Azure API Management's following versions. 

We have been using the solution for four years now.

It is a stable solution, but updates don't work.

We have more than 400 developers and more than 1,000,000 consumers using this tool.

We have a technical consultant. Microsoft support is excellent. They offer a good support solution.

I didn't know about any other API Management solution before, but I had read about the Apigee from Google. Azure is better as it's easier to use and has more features than Google.

It takes work. One needs to learn about this tool, the policies, and how to work with them.

We have consulting companies that help us. The API Management is simple to deploy. We have instances for the production, developer, and staging environments. We have three instances, and the APIs also come with ARM templates. We have a central repository of Azure. Creating a new instance takes a long time, but implementing a new API is faster.

The solution comes with a standard license. Its price is one of its drawbacks. Some costs need to be more affordable for us. Frankly, Azure is our most expensive resource; it's costly.

The solution is very easy to maintain. With it, we can integrate all other products and easily manage them. We have all the interactions in the same cloud.

In API Management, we have segmented consumers' APIs and secrets' APIs. We have global secrets and patents. It is easy to use after you learn and research about the tool. So, one must learn about this tool before implementing it or have a consultant to help with the initial feedback and organizing API products.

I would like to rate the solution as an eight as the price is not low, and it becomes difficult to afford it. It's easy to use, but it could have been easier.

It is easy to use. 

They need to work on the third party integrations. 

I have experience with Microsoft Azure API Management. 

The technical support team is good. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. 

Microsoft is competitively priced. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.