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Layer7 API Management vs WSO2 API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Layer7 API Management
Ranking in API Management
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WSO2 API Manager
Ranking in API Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Layer7 API Management is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WSO2 API Manager is 4.7%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ronald D'Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding
I have mainly implemented using Layer 7 API Management. Some of the major challenges we were able to meet with a quick release to market methodology. Some of the tasks which we achieved for our customers were: 1. Translation service from SOAP to REST and vice versa. 2. API service to DB (Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA) -- Created Swagger APIs that were able to perform CRUD operation to the backend API mentioned above and provided routes to query and get data. 3. Integration with Payment gateway service providers to perform (transaction on behalf of the customer with third-party payment gateway service providers white labeled with our APIs ) -- Followed TMF standards for payment gateway integration with the Telcom world. 4. Orchestration of the API. Build multiple microservers and provided orchestration based on route, path, and data in the request and perform actions that would be communicated with multiple APIs and provide a single consolidated response. 5. Provided API-driven security (Oauth 2.0, JWT, SAML, Basic, and a variety of means) to access the API giving the developer the freedom to concentrate only on application/service/microservice and let the gateway handle the threat. 6. Seamless Mutual Authentication allowed good segregation between APIs in the DMZ and internal network.
VishalSingh14 - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy APIs and easy to manage CORS configuration
I have used WSO2 Store and WSO2 API Manager at the architecture level. I worked on two versions, namely WSO2 API Manager 2.6.0 and 5.7.0. I have also worked with WSO2 Identity Server versions 5.7 and 5.11. There are certain things that Apigee handles better than WSO2 API Manager. The user interface of WSO2 API Manager is much easier than that of Apigee. The scope of flexibility was much greater in Apigee. In WSO2 API Manager, we had little flexibility and were restricted to a specific software or tool. On the other hand, we had the scope of customization in Apigee.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"For developers to be able to come, sign up, or find APIs."
"The initial setup process is easy and flexible."
"Tech support is fast and responsive."
"This improved our organization, because it gives the management data to discuss for the next course of action and it suggests what to work on, as the next thing."
"We can create multiple orgs and set up policies and management. We can also integrate with an APM solution"
"I work for an information security company. CA API Management is capable of using tokens for authorization to manage access control for the APIs."
"As an organization grow, you can use CA API Management for authentication purposes through the CA API Gateway. It allows for multiple identity providers with different Active Directories."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability."
"There are a lot of tools to help the manager. WSO2 is very easy to install. It has all the principal functionalities that you think about when you want to put up the management solution. It's a very friendly tool."
"WSO2 API Manager has a user-friendly model."
"One of the great things about WSO2 API Manager is that it is so easy to adopt. And because it's an open source solution, we're able to extend the implementation any time to suit our company needs better."
"WSO2 API Manager is a stable solution."
"WSO2 API Manager's most valuable features are the simple interface that is easy to use and the APIs lifecycle."
"We could easily deploy APIs on WSO2 API Manager, and CORS configuration was easy to manage."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The setup was not as straightforward as it should have been. Support should be improved."
"I feel there is a lot to improve in terms of providing plug-and-play functionalities, as at the moment it requires a lot of coding in their specific language for implementing a medium-complexity use case."
"Broadcom's technical support team needs improvement."
"The entire lifecycle management approach needs improvement: from the API management, development, deployment, some of the settings around the quotas, and some security policy applications, etc. for the APIs. We found the Apigee platform a lot more robust in that area."
"On the monitoring side, we need a better way to monitor it. CA has not given a clear understanding of what external tools we can use to do this."
"The product's initial setup phase is not very straightforward, making it an area where improvements are required."
"As the number of instances increases, its complexity of installation increases if you do not use the OVA."
"The product needs to keep up with newer trends even though customers might not be requesting it yet."
"We had some problems with the reverse proxy not being able to invoke fully qualified domain names, so we have to build some custom scripts to solve this issue."
"I would like to see improvements in the speed of the solution as it can be a bit slow compared to other platforms along with addressing memory issues would be beneficial."
"Basically, mTLS is a certificate-based communication protocol that WSO2 API Manager doesn't support."
"Based on our recent large scaling project, the latency needs to be improved."
"The stability is pretty good, but it could be improved."
"The solution’s interface should be more user-friendly."
"The pricing models offered by WSO2 API Manager could be more flexible and should offer different options so that more people can access them."
"I would improve the product documentation. There are some gaps, and it can be difficult to find the proper documentation for the product if you need to solve something."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Do not buy piecemeal."
"If you do a TCO of more than five years, then you will see a big jump in costs for some vendors."
"It's my manager who takes care of the pricing. But I keep on hearing that it's a little pricey, it's on the higher side. That is what he says."
"I do not have experience with the pricing or licensing of the product."
"At the time we bought the product it was a perpetual users license and there has been no need for additional licensing fees."
"This solution is a bit more expensive than competitors."
"APIs can be developed to provide security. We can show them in one single pane of glass, such as the CA API Management API Developer Portal. It is there that we can provide the monetization for their APIs and what is happening on third-party applications, like Paytm or BookMyShow."
"Pricing for Layer7 API Management is excellent, so it's an eight out of ten. The product is less expensive than other solutions. Layer7 API Management charges you based on the number of transactions, so the enterprise-level pricing my company got was excellent."
"It is an open-source product."
"We have not opted for the paid version of WSO2 but we have implemented the free and open source WSO2 software to a great extent and it is working as per our expectation."
"It is costly, around ten thousand per year, per instance"
"For our projects, we found the pricing to be a little high."
"As far as I'm aware, the costs are not minimal but satisfactory."
"I am using the free version."
"WSO2 API Manager is a costly solution, and its pricing is not competitive enough compared to other products."
"WSO2 API Manager is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?
Layer7 API Management could be improved in its logging and alert mechanisms. Furthermore, although cloud deployment has been introduced, I am not familiar with all recent updates. In previous versi...
What do you like most about WSO2 API Manager?
It is possible to scale up and scale down with the solution...I can say that I have not seen any issues related to scalability.
What needs improvement with WSO2 API Manager?
One area for improvement is monitoring. Dashboards for application monitoring of the APIs would be beneficial, allowing us to check for faulty APIs.
What is your primary use case for WSO2 API Manager?
We use WSO2 API Manager for our microservices and our APIs, both internally and externally.
 

Also Known As

CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
1. eBay 2. StubHub 3. Cisco 4. Verizon 5. T-Mobile 6. Vodafone 7. Orange 8. BT Group 9. Telstra 10. Deutsche Telekom 11. Swisscom 12. AT&T 13. Sprint 14. Telefonica 15. O2 16. British Airways 17. Lufthansa 18. Emirates 19. Qatar Airways 20. Etihad Airways 21. Air France 22. KLM 23. American Express 24. Visa 25. Mastercard 26. PayPal 27. Western Union 28. Citibank 29. HSBC 30. Barclays 31. Santander 32. Goldman Sachs
Find out what your peers are saying about Layer7 API Management vs. WSO2 API Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.