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.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Reliable with good policies but lacks in-depth documentation
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is reliable and very stable."
- "Technical support could be more helpful and responsive."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The policies on offer are the most valuable aspect of the solution.
The solution is reliable and very stable.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about two years now. It hasn't been too long at this point.
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Microsoft Azure API Management
November 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and support?
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.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: customer
Integration Engineer at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Has security and threshold features that monitor and control API access through a subscription-based model
Pros and Cons
- "It's a valuable tool for API lifecycle management"
- "Documentations for implementing certain product features are very difficult to find"
What is our primary use case?
Microsoft Azure API Management is used in our organization to support the API lifecycle.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a highly stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure API Management can be easily scaled.
How are customer service and support?
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.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What was our ROI?
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.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
Last updated: Jun 11, 2024
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Microsoft Azure API Management
November 2024
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Technical Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Helps developers to securely expose their APIs to external and internal customers
Pros and Cons
- "It's a very robust tool. So you see that there is a developer portal which can be used by developer or the vendors as well. And other external partners to create keys and manage their own APIs. The other thing is that they have a lot of policies there are too many options within API. So I do the difficult to tell one, but probably I would say, like, proxy sorry. The policies is one of the thing wherein you can just configure the policies and modify the behavior of the APIs."
What is most valuable?
It's a very robust tool. There is a developer portal that can be used by developers, vendors and other external partners to create keys and manage their APIs.
Enables you to configure the policies and modify the behavior of the APIs.
What needs improvement?
VNet integration facility is only available in the premium version so that is a drawback.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for six to seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. The size of the clients depends mostly on the type of solution they are using. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team is easily approachable
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. It takes a lot of time to deploy it. They are coming out with a feature that is supposed to shorten how long it takes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Microsoft Azure is an expensive solution not for the large enterprises but for medium and small.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
CTO at Huber
Secure, integrate well with existing APIs, and has good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "Without a doubt, it has a very robust, strong marketplace where we can directly integrate with existing APIs and begin working on those."
- "It should be easier to integrate."
What is our primary use case?
Microsoft Azure API Management is used for platform deployment, hosting, virtual servers, third-party integrations, and the Azure Marketplace.
What is most valuable?
Without a doubt, it has a very robust, strong marketplace where we can directly integrate with existing APIs and begin working on those.
Microsoft Azure API Management is a secure solution.
What needs improvement?
It should be easier to integrate.
For how long have I used the solution?
We are in the process of migrating from Amazon AWS to Microsoft Azure API Management. We are just getting started, we have been using it for a few weeks.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Azure API Management is definitely a scalable product.
It is not based on how many resources will be used, but we will be using three virtual machines from the Azure platform.
We plan to increase our usage.
How are customer service and support?
We are Microsoft partners, MSP, and we have our own service providers to support this activity.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use Google Workspaces and our platform is on Microsoft Azure.
Previously, we were using AWS EC2 Instances, but because we are a Microsoft MSP and also took into account the Active Directory capabilities and the Azure Marketplace, we decided to shift more to Azure.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is more or less straightforward.
It took a couple of weeks to complete the entire migration from Amazon AWS to Microsoft Azure API Management.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
At the moment, we are not using CRM solutions but we are looking into Zoho CRM.
We had planned to use Salesforce, but we changed our minds and decided to use Zoho CRM instead.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.
I would rate Azure API Management a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Stable with fair pricing and good technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The ease of use of the solution is excellent."
- "In the API you need to delete the suffix. It is annoying that you need to have a suffix. We can add a suffix at the API level, not at the operation level, and that could be improved on."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution to manage our APIs.
What is most valuable?
The ease of use of the solution is excellent. It's a very user-friendly solution.
The initial setup is quite straightforward.
We found the solution to be very stable.
The solution can scale if you need it to.
Technical support is very helpful.
The solution has very fair pricing.
What needs improvement?
The lack of wording in the API could be improved. In the API you need to delete the suffix. It is annoying that you need to have a suffix. We can add a suffix at the API level, not at the operation level, and that could be improved on.
There are a couple of features that are lagging.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with the solution for five years or so. It's been a few years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have found the solution to be quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution scales well. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so with relative ease.
We have about 15-20 users on the solution so far.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support has been very good. They are quite helpful and responsive. We are very satisfied with the level of support provided to us.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. A company shouldn't have any problems during the process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of the solution is very fair. It's not overly expensive. It offers very good value.
What other advice do I have?
We are Microsoft partners.
I'd recommend the solution to other individuals and organizations. Overall, I've been quite satisfied with its capabilities.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Operations Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Good for API management, with a decent basic tier and works well for companies with a Microsoft stack
Pros and Cons
- "The price is pretty reasonable for us."
- "The licensing tiers can be misleading."
What is most valuable?
The basic tier is pretty good.
It's publicly available API Management.
The price is pretty reasonable for us.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using the solution about three years ago, and I use it now and again on a few projects.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't have a previous solution.
How was the initial setup?
I wasn't directly involved with the implementation, and I'm not sure how long it took to deploy the product.
What about the implementation team?
Some of my colleagues implemented the solution. We did it ourselves using the documentation provided by Microsoft.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Platform Architect at Ernst & Young
Hybrid API management solution used specifically for API protection and rate limits
Pros and Cons
- "We use this solution for API rate limiting and for its security features against DDoS."
- "The scalability of this solution could be improved. The volume which the API Management task service can handle needs to be improved. Cost wise, this solution could be optimized."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using this solution to protect our APIs and to decouple our APIs between the host versus the outside world. It operates as a gateway pattern in front of the APIs.
What is most valuable?
We use this solution for API rate limiting and for its security features against DDoS.
What needs improvement?
The scalability of this solution could be improved. The volume which the API Management task service can handle needs to be improved. Cost wise, this solution could be optimized.
For how long have I used the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is not a scalable solution.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support for this solution is average. They have not been able to provide a solution to some of the challenges we have faced.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex as this is a PaaS-based solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is an expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to evaluate their volumes, nonfunctional requirements, and just check whether the NFR performance metrics of API Management has been met. Otherwise, better take a trade-off between, because we have gone through the hard path, tried everything using it, and then we have moved from API Management to Apigee.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Manager at PTTEP
Smooth running solution with great Active Directory integration and wireless backup
Pros and Cons
- "We're very satisfied with Azure API Management. We've had no issues with bugs, everything runs smoothly, and the connection between the cloud and the on-premise infrastructure was good."
- "Azure API Management could be improved with better integration with all of Microsoft's tools."
What is our primary use case?
My primary use case is application monitoring.
How has it helped my organization?
We had all our Saas applications on the cloud, so it's easier to centralize everything in Azure, including configuration and maintenance. There's also no need to get another portal for maintenance on additional things, so we can monitor the issue directly.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the Active Directory integration and wireless backup.
What needs improvement?
Azure API Management could be improved with better integration with all of Microsoft's tools. They should also provide basic cybersecurity tools in the package.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Azure API Manager is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Microsoft's technical support is helpful, although there are some issues with time zones.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy - it didn't take long, and the additional features were added normally.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented using an integrator.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are no additional costs above the main license.
What other advice do I have?
We're very satisfied with Azure API Management. We've had no issues with bugs, everything runs smoothly, and the connection between the cloud and the on-premise infrastructure was good. I would rate this solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: November 2024
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