Best API Gateway Tools & Solutions for 2024

The Benefits of Implementing API Gateways

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Simply put, an API gateway is a management tool that acts as a middleman between users and your application's services. It processes requests from users, directing them to the appropriate services, and then compiles the results into a cohesive response. 

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Here are some of the main benefits it can provide:

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• API gateways streamline the management of APIs, offering a mix of open-source and proprietary tools for businesses to find their perfect match. The key to this simplification is a unified entry point for all API interactions, making it easier to monitor, maintain, and update APIs.
• They bolster security by serving as a protective barrier. They implement crucial safeguards such as authentication, authorization, and encryption, ensuring sensitive data remains secure across networks.
• API gateways handle load balancing to even out request distribution across servers and use response caching to lessen backend load, enhancing user response times. As demands grow, they enable services to scale efficiently, handling increased traffic with ease.
• There’s also added control over traffic flow through rate limiting, safeguarding your system from overload by any single user or service. Setting quotas limits the number of requests a user can make in a given timeframe, further securing your system against excessive use.
• Gateways provide a centralized point for analytics, offering a detailed view of API traffic. This enables in-depth analysis of usage patterns, identifying areas for improvement. They also yield insights into service utilization, guiding future development strategies.

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How to Choose the Right API Gateway Tool?

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We’ve discussed how it’s absolutely necessary to go for the best-suited option, but how does one determine that? There are a couple of factors at play here, each necessitating a keen eye:

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What Are Your Specific Requirements?

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Start by outlining what you specifically need from an API gateway. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

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• Are you looking for enhanced security features, such as JWT authentication or OAuth? 
• Do you need support for a high volume of requests per second?
• Can the API gateway be tailored to fit your unique business logic, routing rules, and processing requirements?
• Does the API gateway support protocols and standards such as HTTP/2, WebSocket, and gRPC? 

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There’s a lot to ask, but whether you're working with a microservices architecture, a monolithic setup, or something in between, your API gateway should painlessly integrate with your existing infrastructure. 

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Look for tools that support your architectural model and provide the necessary integrations for smooth operation.

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Evaluate the Features

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First, assess the gateway's ability to handle your expected traffic volume and grow with your business. Can it manage load balancing effectively? How does it handle caching? The right tool will ensure high performance and scalability, even during peak traffic periods.

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Next, evaluate the gateway's security features, including encryption, rate limiting, and access control. The ability to protect your APIs from common threats and vulnerabilities is non-negotiable.

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Consider the developer experience. A good API gateway offers comprehensive documentation, an intuitive interface, and tools that simplify API management. This can significantly reduce development time and improve efficiency.

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Visibility into your API's performance and usage is also essential for continuous improvement. Choose a gateway that provides detailed analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing you to track everything from response times to usage patterns.

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Open Source vs. Proprietary

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Open source API gateway tools offer flexibility and the opportunity for customization. They can be a cost-effective option with strong community support. However, consider the potential need for in-house expertise to manage and customize the tool to your needs.

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Proprietary gateways often come with premium support, advanced features, and regular updates. While they may come at a higher cost, the investment might be justified by the ease of use, reliability, and support services provided.

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Evaluate

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Before making a final decision, conduct pilot tests with shortlisted gateways. This allows you to evaluate their performance and suitability for your environment in real-world scenarios.

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Look into the support and community surrounding the gateway. An active community can provide valuable resources and troubleshooting help, while strong vendor support can ensure quick resolutions to potential issues.

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10 Best API Gateways and Management Tools

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This list of API gateway tools offer comprehensive capabilities from API design and testing to security, monitoring, and analytics, facilitating a streamlined API lifecycle management experience:

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1. Kong

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Designed to cater to businesses of all sizes, Kong ensures a consistent developer experience with real-time analytics and a scalable infrastructure. 

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It allows for secure management of APIs across any cloud, team, gateway, protocol, or architecture from a single interface, making it a pivotal tool for modern digital infrastructure management.

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Key Features:

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• Centralize control over your APIs across diverse environments and architectures.
• Tailor with an expansive plugin ecosystem for specific security, monitoring, and functionality needs.
• Handle applications of any size, ensuring API performance and reliability.
• Enhance orchestration and management with native support for Kubernetes.
• Utilize AI-driven insights for advanced API management and optimization.

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Pricing: Adopts a flexible pay-as-you-go billing model, with $500 of free credits to kickstart your API management.

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2. Apigee

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As part of the Google Cloud Platform, Apigee has popularized itself with capabilities for large-scale API deployment and integration with Google Cloud. 

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It offers comprehensive management features for a broad spectrum of applications, making it an ideal choice for organizations looking to leverage unmatched scale, security, and performance in their API strategies.

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Key Features:

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• Automated controls with AI/ML for secure API construction.
• Support for REST, SOAP, GraphQL, or gRPC architectural styles.
• Flexible pricing options, including pay-as-you-go or subscription models.
• Duet AI for automatic OpenAPI specification generation and API proxy creation.
• Advanced API security with ML-based abuse detection.
• High-performance API proxies for traffic management of demanding applications.
• Hybrid/multicloud deployments for architectural freedom.

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Pricing: Apigee offers three pricing tiers: an evaluation model with a 60-day free sandbox, a pay-as-you-go model starting at $20 per 1M API calls, and a subscription model with custom pricing for enterprises.

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3. KrakenD

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KrakenD is a leading high-performance, open-source API gateway designed for stateless architectures, emphasizing simplicity and scalability. It excels in environments that demand high throughput and dynamic scalability, supporting unlimited endpoints and backends. KrakenD offers advanced features such as user quota management, rate limiting, and comprehensive security policies.

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Key Features:

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• True linear scalability on stateless architecture.
• Supports over 70,000 requests/second on commodity hardware.
• Automated data transformation, aggregation, or removal for efficient API management.
• Built for performance with a low consumption of resources.
• Configurable via a simple JSON file or the KrakenDesigner GUI for ease of use.
• Stateless design allows for scaling without single points of failure.
• Offers extensive security options including OAuth, SSL certificates, and zero-trust policies.
• Compatible with multiple architectural styles including REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and gRPC.
• Extensible with plugins, embedded scripts, and support for asynchronous agents.

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Pricing: KrakenD is open-source and free to use, offering a cost-effective solution for organizations looking to implement a high-performance API gateway without the burden of licensing fees.

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4. Gravitee.io

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Gravitee.io API Platform offers an intuitive, Java-based framework for comprehensive API management. It encompasses modules for API management, access management, and an alert engine, ensuring multi-tenancy support alongside a variety of security features. 

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Ideal for businesses seeking a robust API management solution, Gravitee.io streamlines the process of managing, securing, and exposing APIs across different protocols and event brokers.

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Key Features:

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• Supports a wide range of API types, protocols, and event brokers, including REST, SOAP, Websockets, Webhooks, Kafka, MQTT, and more.
• No-code API Designer for easy API creation and importation, facilitating rapid API development and deployment.
• Policy Studio for crafting policy flows that enhance API and data stream security, reliability, and resilience.
• Developer Portal to promote API discoverability, allowing consumers to find, subscribe to, and engage with APIs effectively.
• Enterprise-grade API monitoring and alerting through the Alert Engine, ensuring comprehensive oversight across the API landscape.

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Pricing: Gravitee.io's pricing structure is divided into four tiers: Open Source, Planet, Galaxy, and Universe. Prices range from a base subscription of $2,500/month for the Planet tier to contact-based pricing for Galaxy and Universe tiers, which offer more advanced features and higher levels of customer support.

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5. Gloo Edge

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Gloo Edge is a Kubernetes-native ingress controller and API gateway, built atop the robust Envoy Proxy. It is tailored for hybrid applications, facilitating seamless interactions across various technologies and clouds. 

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Gloo Edge is celebrated for its functional-level routing, external authentication capabilities, and seamless service-mesh integration, making it an ideal choice for organizations looking to bridge legacy applications with modern microservices and serverless architectures.

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Key Features:

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• Based on the powerful Envoy Proxy, offering high performance and reliability.
• Fully conformant with the Kubernetes Gateway API, ensuring seamless integration and broad compatibility.
• Supports function-level routing, allowing precise control over API traffic and enabling direct invocation of specific functions.
• Hybrid app support, enabling the routing of requests to backends implemented as microservices, serverless functions, and legacy apps.
• Integrates with a wide range of open-source projects for enhanced functionality.
• Offers robust discovery capabilities, automatically cataloging and updating available destinations.

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Pricing: Gloo Edge offers an open-source version with community support, while enterprise-grade features and support are available under a subscription model.

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6. Apache APISIX

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Apache APISIX represents a high-performance API gateway designed for modern architectures, leveraging Nginx and etcd for efficient traffic management, load balancing, and security enforcement. 

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It's built to support HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, and UDP protocols, offering developers a flexible architecture to accommodate a wide range of applications.

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Key Features:

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• Extensive traffic management capabilities including load balancing, dynamic upstream, canary release, and circuit breaking.
• Comprehensive security measures with support for various authentication methods and observability features.
• Utilizes radix tree route matching and etcd for high-speed system synchronization and minimal latency.
• Hot updates and plugin loading for real-time configuration updates without system restarts.
• Multi-protocol support ensuring compatibility across HTTP, gRPC, WebSockets, Dubbo, MQTT, and more.
• Highly scalable, enabling custom plugin development and custom load balancing algorithms.

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Pricing: Apache APISIX is an open-source project, available for free. Organizations can deploy and customize it according to their needs without any licensing fees.

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7. WSO2 API Microgateway

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WSO2 API Microgateway, more suited in the context of microservices as an open-source, cloud-native gateway that excels in handling lightweight operations. 

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It's designed to support the composition of multiple services through a single API, making it a prime choice for environments that demand agility and efficiency.

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Key Features:

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• Leverages OpenAPI Specification for collaborative API development.
• Offers rate-limiting, service discovery, and security features.
• Facilitates message security, transport security, and routing.
• Enables developers to define API endpoints using standard OpenAPI definitions.
• Utilizes vendor extensions for gateway-specific properties like security and rate limiting.
• Simplifies the management of APIs with capabilities for message transformation and schema validation.
• Supports automated updates and deployment of APIs for quick and seamless iteration.

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Pricing: As an open-source solution, WSO2 API Microgateway is available at no cost!

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8. Fusio

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Fusio is a versatile PHP-based open-source platform designed for the rapid development and management of REST APIs. Its known for its capability to connect various data sources and create APIs efficiently, backed by features like rate limiting, OAuth2 authorization, and OpenAPI generation. 

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Fusio aims to democratize API solutions, making it a go-to tool for developers looking to innovate in the API economy.

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Key Features:

• Control and monitor APIs through a powerful backend application.
• Engage developers with a dedicated portal for API registration and usage.
• Generate APIs without coding from multiple sources with API generators.
• Implement monetization strategies for API routes with a simple payment system.
• Automatically generate client SDKs and OAI/RAML specifications for APIs.
• Support for rate limiting requests based on user or application.
• Subscription layer for building pub/sub systems in APIs.

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Pricing: Being an open-source platform, Fusio is free to use, making it an attractive option for developers and organizations looking to manage their APIs without incurring additional costs.

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9. Apiman

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Apiman, a Java-based API management tool, offers a design and configuration layer for APIs. It’s extremely flexible, offering features like policy-based runtime governance, and a strong focus on throttling, quotas, and centralized security. 

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As an open-source platform, Apiman is notably accessible, allowing for extensive customization through simple Java plugins.

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Key Features:

• Govern your APIs with flexible, policy-based runtime governance.
• Rich management layer including a full REST API, Apiman Manager UI, and a standalone Apiman Developer Portal.
• Extensible and flexible, supporting the creation, testing, and deployment of custom policies and components.
• Covers a wide range of API management use cases, from classic scenarios to more complex needs.
• Designed to run anywhere, at any scale, without limitations.

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Pricing: As an open-source tool, Apiman is available for free.

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10. MuleSoft Anypoint

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MuleSoft Anypoint is a platform designed for API design, management, and integration, acclaimed for its graphical interface, extensive security policies, and wide range of integration capabilities. 

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Ideal for complex digital environments, it empowers organizations to connect any data, system, or AI model securely, automate tasks and processes, and enhance productivity across the board.

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Key Features:

• Automate business processes across various systems, including legacy ones, with AI-powered API gateway management tools.
• Graphical interface and AI-powered natural language prompts streamline development for both developers and business users.
• Offers a comprehensive toolset for integration, APIs, and automation to speed up IT project delivery.
• Deployment flexibility across any environment with Anypoint Flex Gateway and support for CloudHub, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Advanced security features including automatic compliance with ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and GDPR.

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Pricing: MuleSoft Anypoint offers a starting free trial with subsequent pricing details available upon request. The platform encourages organizations to explore their capabilities with an initial hands-on experience before committing financially.

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Conclusion

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In essence, API gateways not only simplify API management through a centralized platform, but also facilitate integration, scalability, and monitoring of digital services. This is what makes them so important, and choosing the correct option can make a day and night difference in your business’s delivery.

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