Microsoft Azure API Management Reviews

There's a customer who wanted to migrate their API from their on-prem environment to Azure. They're looking at utilizing Azure API to manage all their other APIs. We just started with migrating one of their APIs. They're still working with it, still trying to learn the difference between what they had for on-prem and Azure. We are in the process of actually migrating a lot of their APIs.

Access control is the most valuable aspect. It's the main reason really why a lot of clients are moving - as we are able to deploy multiple APIs and be able to also segregate who's got access to which API, who's got access to the other API. That centralized management is what the customer is really looking for.

The initial setup was okay.

The solution isn't missing anything. For the use case that we have right now, it's perfect. It offers everything that you'd look for in an API Management solution.

There's a new developer portal that's been added before they rolled out the new updates. I haven't really checked it out, however, the developer portal that they introduced is better than before. They've really improved on that one. If you are using the old portal, it's not as good. 

We have two different customers. The other customer wants us to move completely, to migrate their APIs to Azure. The other one wants to manage their APIs, which are running on-prem. I've explored that in the flexibility, in terms of integration with an on-prem environment. The integration could be improved for those on-prem use cases. 

The integration with other API gateways is where they might try to improve.

Support could be better. 

I started using the solution six months ago.

In terms of stability, I have seen that it is packaged into four different plans. If I'm not mistaken, there should be basic, standard, conception, and developer. I wanted to try to avoid deploying a lot of units, it uses a concept of compute units or scaling units. I was using the conception tier, which is not designed to be highly available. I was testing features, I didn't mind the level of availability. I suspect that if you choose the high-end SQL, it's most likely to be available. However, in terms of cost, I'm yet to find that out.

If you compare the SQL, and that's one that really supports scalability across regions, it's good. It's very scalable.

We have ten developers using the solution right now. 

We do plan to increase usage. 

Microsoft is huge, and when it comes to support, it's not so great as compared to, if you have something software specific. Whenever you ask them a question, they assume you to know everything. It's challenging to get the level of support that you'd want.

We used to use Kong. 

Kong is more of an on-prem API gateway, and this one is cloud-based. And given that many customers are migrating to the cloud, it was actually one of the reasons why we're convincing the customers that we have used their APIs to migrate to the cloud. 

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. 

I have a basic understanding of the API fundamentals. Those were what I was looking for; that's what I was looking for first, just to see if my understanding of the fundamentals. With my level of knowledge, it was fine. 

For someone with basic knowledge, you can deploy the solution within a week. 

There is some maintenance needed. However, that person is supposed to be someone who's more DevOps inclined.

We handled the initial setup in-house. 

I've been using the conception tier. If you choose the lower-end tiers, it'll be fine, cost-wise. However, those tiers are just for development purposes; they're not really for the production environment. I would suspect if you move onto the higher tiers, it'll be pretty pricey.

I was looking into Azure API Management and the equivalent and in AWS.

I wanted to compare the functionality between Azure API Management and Amazon API Gateway, as there's a customer that wants AWS API Gateway instead of Azure. I just wanted to see if the features are similar. I'm looking into that now. 

We're a Microsoft partner. 

The role that I have right now is a role where I'm a deployment engineer for cloud services, so depending on what the customer wants, someone's migrating from their on-prem, from VMware, the Linux, the Hyper-V to Azure, someone has to design highly available solutions, like applications that are tiered, that is three-tiered or two-tiered. Some want to utilize API Management. With API Management, we don't have a lot of customers on that front, as they sort of don't understand how it works. Right now, it's an area where we've worked with two of our biggest customers that have got multiple APIs on their on-prem environment. I've got basic experience, especially on what an API is and the benefits of Azure API Management as compared to what they have.

We're using the latest version of the product.

We are completely moving our customers from their on-prem APIs. It's a complete cloud solution; they don't want any hybrid solution.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten based on the level of knowledge I have. The learning curve is pretty high. It's API Management and it also supports API gateways. It didn't decentralize those features, so the learning curve that's there for someone is a bit much.

I would recommend the solution to others. 

One of our applications went live a month ago, and it uses the whole suite of Microsoft APIs.

I like the support they provide for the APIs more than the solution itself. First of all, documentation-wise, both Microsoft Azure and even Google Cloud are up there. But in comparison, the real-time consulting and support for APIs make Microsoft stand out a little.

I also like the performance. Standard public cloud provider-built APIs are more resilient and flexible in terms of what feature you want to use and what feature you don't want to use, and they're more customizable. They are more resilient in terms of performance in that particular environment because that is the design aspect of the offering.

When public clouds build APIs and deploy them after testing them on their framework for a certain amount of time, I feel there is a massive difference in the product's performance. On the interface, everything is strong.

Specific to API development, I think Microsoft is still far behind AWS. AWS has grown by leaps and bounds, and Microsoft is a close second. But in terms of features and other stuff they provide, Microsoft's compatibility with publicly available APIs is a little limited. So, that is a little bit of a constraint. But what they provide is good, it's just that they need to build more on their API suite. I think Google is doing a really good job at that.

We have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for at least a year.

Microsoft Azure API Management is stable.

Microsoft Azure API Management's scalability is pretty good. At present, we have around 10,000 to 15,000 users. We are also evaluating the application, and we should grow in the cloud rapidly from now on.

Microsoft's support stands out. They provide good support in terms of consulting and operation support for their API. So, that is very helpful. Microsoft sometimes looks at the size of the customer, the way they are involved, and the size of the environment. They are also willing to go beyond periodically to consult on the best way to do stuff.

On a scale from one to five, I would give Microsoft technical support a four.

Positive

The initial setup wasn't entirely straightforward or altogether complex. It was somewhere in the middle.

On a scale from one to five, I would give the initial setup of Microsoft Azure API Management a three. For me, AWS is two, and Microsoft is three.

We did the deployment in-house, working directly with Microsoft.

Because of our partner relationship, our pricing is pretty decent. But in general, if I compare pricing, I think the initial offer that we got from Microsoft until the relationship kicked in was more expensive than AWS.

There were some unexpected expenses because we had to pause. This was due to our inexperience and because we were doing this significant public cloud migration for the first time. We were using SAP on a public cloud for the first time. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure API Management an eight. 

We're a bank, so one of our primary use cases for API Management is integrating our API with third parties that provide financial policies. Sometimes they want to use our services, like payment and customer inquiry, so we give them access to the API gateway. 

Azure API Management allows you to control who has access to your API gateways and assign permission levels to third parties if you want integration with third-party solutions. That has a couple of advantages. Those third parties can directly access your API directly, and you can set limits. It can also configure authentication on other API managers.

An API gateway is like a platform, and your API provides access to the resources in your environment, so this gateway is an intermediary between you and third parties. It's also the interface between your internal applications. For example, if you have a mobile app and internet banking, they can all be copied in the same API through that gateway. So, that was basically the use cases we have. So, we have almost all the API's behind the gateway.

I like API Management's sandbox feature. It's an environment where you can test out the API before putting it into production and connecting it to a live environment.

The hybrid part could be improved because API Management is entirely cloud-based, but some of our resources are on-prem, so formatting is an issue. Our goal is dual implementation. 

There's always room for improvement in terms of the user interface. Generally speaking, technology evolves, so any service provider needs to make their product as user-friendly as possible. In the next couple of years, we'll see more non-tech people handling tech solutions. The solution should be more accessible, so people can use it to create things without being very tech-savvy.

We've been using Azure API Management for about three years.

API Management is stable.

API Management is scalable. The licensing is structured so that you save more at a higher scale. The only limit to the scale is how much you're willing to pay. 

We have an enterprise support contract for Microsoft, and we don't have problems with them. 

We used IBM ESB before Azure API Management, and we're using both now. ESB isn't the same as API Management from a technology perspective. They have distinct functions, but they can do similar things. You can view an API on IBM ESB, but you can view and expose API on Azure API Management. They solve similar problems but are not exactly the same.

Deploying API Management is somewhat tricky depending on your level of technical knowledge. The first time we used it in production, we had it for a couple of months. The first month was an evaluation period, so we had it in a test environment to get a feel for how it works and possible complications. However, you could deploy it in a couple of weeks if you wanted. 

You only need about two to manage it, including one admin. It's more like a platform-as-a-service, so we don't need to do the normal maintenance we do on an on-prem platform. 

We deployed API Management in-house.

I can't disclose how much we pay monthly, but the pricing for Azure API Management is available online. It's pay as you go. The subscription packages have room for different scales. It's calculated by the number of apps or computers you use. You do not have to use the enterprise subscription. These subscriptions have different pricing, so you can find one to meet your needs for scalability.

I rate Azure API Management nine out of 10. Your choice of technology is based on your needs, budget, and C suite. Azure API Management is a good product, but there are some other good services, like Azure Connect, Google APG, and a couple of others. It depends on your needs.

Using a cloud solution has advantages because the client can immediately use the product. Another strong reason we use Azure API Management is that we heavily use Microsoft products in our organization, so Azure is a natural choice.

We use the solution for API management. 

The tool's most valuable feature is the integration of CI/CD with the API gateway. 

Microsoft Azure API Management needs to improve stability. 

Microsoft Azure API Management is stable; I rate it an eight out of ten. 

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

The cloud-based version is not difficult to deploy. Microsoft Azure API Management's deployment depends on the API numbers customers want to onboard. It takes around four to six months. 

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

Microsoft Azure API Management provides customers with customized solutions for various use cases and situations, allowing them to deploy their API strategy and products while also managing and protecting APIs.

It provides solutions for architecting, deploying, and monitoring APIs with other Azure services. 

Users can manage their complete API lifespan using Azure API Management.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure API Management is monitoring.

When compared with Apigee, I prefer Microsoft Azure API Management.

When comparing the API Gateway of Microsoft Azure API Management with those of Apigee and Vital Mikram, which are other API management solutions, I prefer, Vital Mikram, the others are similar.

I would like to see more integration with other platforms, as well as increased security.

I have been working with Microsoft Azure API Management for ten years.

Azure has both a certificate and a level certification.

Microsoft Azure API Management is stable.

Microsoft Azure API Management is a scalable solution.

We have ten users in our organization.

We have a team of five to ten technicians to maintain this solution per unit.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

It was deployed very quickly.

We deployed it ourselves. It was done in-house.

The price is comparable.

In my opinion, it is similar to Apigee.

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

The basic tier is pretty good. 

It's publicly available API Management.

The price is pretty reasonable for us. 

We need better integration with VNet. 

It would be nice to not only configure it through the interface but also with an ARM template or something like that. Maybe it's possible, but it's not that easy to find.

It took us time to get used to the interface. Now that we run it, it's a little bit hard to have a testing environment and the production environment and keep it synced. If you can do that through a script, that would be far easier. However, there was a time thing on our side. We couldn't get it done, and in the end, we just set it up manually.

The licensing tiers can be misleading. 

It would be ideal if there was a way to add monetization into the mix so that we could more easily sell our APIs.

I started using the solution about three years ago, and I use it now and again on a few projects. 

We didn't have a previous solution.

I wasn't directly involved with the implementation, and I'm not sure how long it took to deploy the product. 

Some of my colleagues implemented the solution. We did it ourselves using the documentation provided by Microsoft. 

We are using a basic tier. 

For the things we do, it's reasonable in terms of cost. You can implement it in the developer solutions. That's basically more or less free. But if you implement VNET in it there, you can only upgrade it if you use premium, and premium is so expensive. That's just no fun. That was a little bit annoying since you think you have a good solution in your development environment, and then you are in production and need a premium tier to have the same configuration. We had to reconfigure some stuff.

We also looked at Apigee, and Apigee has some integrated features, however, Apigee was very complex to get started with. Apart from that, we are a Microsoft company, and we're on the Microsoft stack. It was more logical to keep everything in Azure. That's why we chose Azure API Management.

We use Azure and it suits our case pretty well. It could be better, but we might also have to learn more. Currently, I would rate it at an eight out of ten for our use case. We might also want to use it in the future to sell subscriptions, which is not possible out of the box. You can configure subscriptions, yet you still have to do the whole selling and measuring and things like that. That's not fully integrated.

I use API Management for all of our AKS clusters.

API Management's price could be lower.

I've been using API Management for a year.

API Management is stable.

API Management is scalable based on the load.

API Management does not take long to deploy.

We used an in-house team.

I would rate API Management nine out of ten.

We use this product for Epics, Story and Function Management for Products and Accelerator Development, Deployment and Operations Management.

This is a One Place solution for the majority of needs in an IT and Software development environment.

Microsoft Azure API Management is better because it has a DevOps integration by default.

It would be better if it were easier to transition to Azure from JIRA. For example, there are different nomenclature that must be addressed when you shift to Azure from JIRA. JIRA's storage, tasks, and epics are treated differently from Azure. 

Here they might become functions, which is not an option in JIRA because that nomenclature difference is there. 

JIRA has sub-tasks, but sub-tasks don't exist in Azure. The nomenclature and the linking between Epics and a function and a story are different, and people may have to learn to adapt to the new nomenclature.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Project Management for about Two and a half years.

Microsoft Azure API Management is pretty stable. We are Microsoft gold partners, so we have not faced any issues until now.

Microsoft Azure API Management is scalable. The Microsoft platform supports my organization, which is 35,000 employees strong.

Technical support is pretty good. 

We were using JIRA which can be enhanced by using third-party tools, this is a costly business so we shifted to the Microsoft platform, which was integrated for development as well as management. So that's a better way of doing things.

The initial setup is straightforward. It was an organization-wide integration, so we have never faced any issues.

It's free for less than ten users. If you want to go beyond that, its paid. But when you use all features of Azure its a very cost effective solution.

Costs depend on the size, complexity, usage, and what facility you want to integrate. So, we use Microsoft Azure and have the entire DevOps and Visual Studio on the cloud. We get all enterprise flavor with very optimum cost, when compared to multivendor environment.

I would tell potential users to go for it. It's a good platform. Even though the ecosystem may not be that strong, it's a better option for a software development company. You can explore other options to save some bucks if you are not into software development. However, for an IT company, Microsoft Azure is the better option.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Azure API Management an eight.

I work with an enterprise and they needed to manage lots of APIs. They needed to manage information and they use this product to meet their needs.

The policies on offer are the most valuable aspect of the solution. 

The solution is reliable and very stable. 

I don't really have anything in mind at the moment in terms of areas of improvement. It does what we need it to do for the most part.

Technical support could be more helpful and responsive. They are quite slow. 

The documentation around the solution is lacking. Users will need to do a lot of digging and googling in order to get the answers they need. 

The premium version is very expensive. 

I've been using the solution for about two years now. It hasn't been too long at this point. 

The solution was stable. We didn't have issues with bugs or glitches. It didn't crash or freeze. it was pretty reliable and the performance was pretty good. 

Technical support was a bit slow, actually. We did engage technical support once or twice and it took quite a bit of time for them to come back to us. By the time they'd come back, we'd kind of solved the problem ourselves. They weren't overly helpful.

I'm just a developer, so I didn't really get involved in the pricing. Therefore, I can't speak to the exact costs of the agreements involved in terms of licensing. That said, I do know that we used the developer license just to try things out. My understanding is that the premium version is quite expensive.

I'm a customer and an end-user. My company does not have a special business relationship with Microsoft.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

While technical support and documentation are lacking, I would still recommend the product to others. 

The solution has pretty stable capabilities.

Their construction tool allows users to easily publish information about the API. It's basically just one click.

You can configure the subscription management onsite and link everything.

The developer portal that exposed the API documentation is great. You can just test the APIs in a very easy way. 

The web portal is useful. You can build a pretty comprehensive portal where users can sign in and you can basically leave the API there.

The API management provided offers good integration with different management systems, like OpenID, for example.

The user management is pretty seamless.

Pricing is definitely an aspect that can be improved. They should offer an additional free tier. For example, if there was a tier for new accounts created, it may help their services by getting people onboarded. Once you will give access to someone and they try it they'll see, "Okay, it works and you can pretty quickly add something on top of it". After that, the client will end up staying, and probably paying.

The cost is also complex in terms of calculating how much everything will ultimately be priced at. It's not straightforward as it takes into account multiple factors.

Technical support could be more flexible and try to meet the client's needs a bit more effectively.

The solution needs to provide more use cases so that we can refer them to clients. It will help answer any questions in relation to performance and load management.

I've been using the solution for about a year at this point.

There are some bugs that exist in this construction tool for the developer portal. We are submitting these bugs to Azure, so they already know about it. Overall, it's pretty stable.

In terms of Azure technical support, we've had no issues in regards to response times. They are prompt. However, in some particular cases, they unable to be flexible. For example, with MQTT blockers, while you might want another port, they might tell you to use the hosted solution in order to get them to configure it. We'd just like them to have more flexibility with requests like this.

In terms of corporate security nowadays, it's very important to be flexible. At the end of the day we get stuck in the bureaucracy. If they could practice flexibility, it would be better for their clients, who may not have the wiggle room on their end.  

That said, we're mostly satisfied with their level of service.

The solution has a kind of calculator and it's not always straightforward to figure out the logic in pricing. There are lots of services that are managed in different ways. For a non-technical person, it's a nightmare to figure everything out.

At the end of the day, you have to build approximate pricing for the solution. According to my experiences in multiple projects, you do get preliminary pricing that is close to or the same as the estimate.  

Right now, for a particular client, we're using a managed version of the solution, however, in the future, I foresee us hosting it somewhere in the cloud.

We're using the most up to date version of the solution.

Overall, the solution has a lot of great features. There are a few bugs here and there, however, a the end of the day, there's lots of value provided.

I'd rate the solution at an eight, on a scale from one to ten. It's got a rather high cost and still has some areas that need some improvement. Otherwise, I'd rate it higher.