Microsoft Azure API Management and Apigee are prominent contenders in the API management space. Apigee has a competitive edge with its strong developer portal and extensive analytics, while Azure's seamless integration with Microsoft services is appealing to those entrenched in that ecosystem.
Features: Microsoft Azure API Management offers seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, easy setup, and robust security policies. It provides comprehensive monitoring and exhaustive documentation and support. Apigee excels with a robust developer portal, extensive analytics, and strong traffic management capabilities. It is recognized for its monetization features and API lifecycle management, with multiple deployment model support.
Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure could improve its multi-tenant functionality, scalability, and lower pricing barriers. Better integration with external directories would enhance its offering. Apigee could benefit from a simpler pricing model and reduced complexity for smaller enterprises. Enhancements in custom integration policies and faster feature deployment are also needed.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure provides an advantage in hybrid and public cloud deployments within its ecosystem but is sometimes criticized for slow technical support. Apigee supports various deployment models including hybrid, public, and private clouds, with user feedback highlighting its complex yet robust capabilities. Apigee's customer service is perceived as more responsive, with customized support linked to Google's infrastructure.
Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure API Management offers competitive pricing tiers with concerns over high costs for extensive features. It provides clear ROI for those embedded in Microsoft's ecosystem. Apigee's higher pricing suits larger enterprises, with its value underscored by reduced integration times and effective API management; however, cost considerations remain a factor.
Proper configuration of the solution, implementation strategy and correct scaling tier selection are other factors that influence the ROI.
The ROI on API management as a concept metric that we are using in conversations is that we can reduce integration lead times by 90%.
After conducting an analysis, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible unless we sacrificed security.
They are responsive and provide assistance even during production issues.
Technical Support: 10/10, as our Microsoft account manager arranged direct contact with members of the API Management Team.
We have a direct line of contact with Microsoft product management's technical support.
They first have to narrow down your requirements, it's not direct access to support with direct feedback.
Adding extra Cassandra databases is complex.
I rate the scalability of Microsoft Azure API Management a ten out of ten.
There is no need to dedicate any staff to the maintenance of the solution.
The scalability doesn't seem to be a challenge because it's a cloud-based solution.
Apigee is stable, and we have had the system running on Apigee servers for more than four years without any stability issues.
It doesn't crash or freeze.
The stability is great, as mentioned earlier it is backed by Microsoft Azure platform and that brings good stability as it is and being the cloud solution we do not have to worry about scaling either.
There have been no crashes and we haven't experienced bugs or glitches.
Apigee only allows validation of transactions up to a four-hour period, which requires manual hovering over the date and time.
Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability.
The instructions on the district API and the initial stages of working with the solution need to be documented better so that users are more informed and they can have an improved experience.
The service is extensive and expensive, and this added flexibility would make it more manageable and less prone to errors.
Easy exporting of configurations from the Administrator portal.
Apigee is perceived as slightly costly compared to other tools in the market.
Apigee is high-priced, suitable for large enterprises where the benefit aligns with the cost.
If a customer wants to expose their internal APIs to the Azure API Management Portal, then they would require a VPN connection which requires the Premium Pricing tier.
According to my experiences in multiple projects, you do get preliminary pricing that is close to or the same as the estimate.
Azure API Management is the most expensive solution on the market.
The features for API security have been significant with Apigee.
The most valuable feature is the developer portal, which has source code examples in various programming languages to help developers learn the API.
The way the solution integrates with other Azure services is its most valuable aspect.
The most valuable features are authentication and authorization.
Apigee is a platform for developing and managing APIs. Apigee offers an interface for your core services by wrapping them with a proxy layer which is then accessed by other developers. With Apigee, you can design and build APIs and then securely share their services and data without exposing any code.
Because app developers make HTTP requests to an API proxy rather than directly to your services, your services are separated from the developers. All the developer needs to know is the URL of the API proxy endpoint, necessary query parameters, authorization credentials (if they exist), and the response data format.
The API proxy isolates the app developer from your backend service. Therefore, you are free to change the service implementation if the public API remains consistent. By maintaining a consistent frontend API, existing client apps will continue to work regardless of changes on the backend.
Key capabilities of the Apigee API management platform include:
Reviews from Real Users:
Apigee stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its rich developer portal, its advanced analytics, and its central monitoring system.
Carlos R., a software architect at Caja Los Andes writes, “The central monitoring feature is the most valuable. It also provides security for the APIs and high availability for our use cases. Apigee is the best product in the industry in comparison to other API management solutions. It helps in fast development, which is a top point. It also supports a lot of industry standards and has excellent documentation.”
An associate vice president at a tech services company notes, “The analytics function and the developer portal are the two valuable features of Apigee. The analytics part is very good, and the developer portal is quite rich in features. The authentication mechanisms are quite easily built into Apigee, which is something that most of the other products have also now started supporting.”
Microsoft Azure API Management is essential for managing APIs, facilitating integration, and ensuring secure internal and external communication.
Organizations leverage Microsoft Azure API Management for seamless integration and effective API management. It supports microservices, legacy modernization, and platform orchestration in sectors like healthcare, telecom, and finance. Features such as developer portals and centralized libraries simplify usage. While it showcases strengths in hybrid cloud support and scalability, improvements are suggested in versioning and multi-tenancy.
What key features does it offer?Microsoft Azure API Management aids modernization across healthcare, telecom, and financial services by enabling legacy system updates and facilitating smooth platform orchestration.
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