WSO2 API Manager Reviews

We use WSO2 Manager for API management.

WSO2 API Manager can be improved a lot relating to usability.  It is a bit heavy. The workflow is more complicated in terms of API creation and publishing. 

I have been working with WSO2 API Manager for four years now.

WSO2 API Manager is fairly stable. I won't say, it is very stable. We have had our issues.

WSO2 API Manager is scalable.

You need to understand the nuances of the support calls.

Neutral

The initial setup of WSO2 API Manager is not very straightforward. It is complicated.

The implementation is done in-house.

I do not feel there is a return on investment.

It is costly, around ten thousand per year, per instance. We normally run two nodes and one cluster per region. This is just for APIM and identity manager put together, so it's like six instances of AP manager and six instances of identity server. That comes to around one hundred and twenty thousand. For an open-source solution, it is a bit costly.

I would rate WSO2 API Manager a six out of ten because of usability and cost.

We have developed a slew of applications for Bank, that helped transform multiple core banking processes, such as customer onboarding, account servicing, and rapid loan request fulfillment. The solution, which is powered by WSO2’s API management and enterprise integration technologies, seamlessly bridges systems while paving the digital path to a connected financial ecosystem.

• Reduced operating costs by using open-source technology solutions
• Enhanced customer trust built through multi-channel communication
• Shortened delivery time for client services
• Improved compliance and reduced risk exposure

Helped us to quickly publish our Microservice APIs and enforcing different policies against them, it comes up with features like Security, Throttling policy and it provides complete access to customize API's which actually saves development effort and time.

The solution offers a simple and easy configuration. You can get it working up within one or two days' time. It's very fast, simple to use, and you can deploy things quickly. Its very easy to configure and takes less time to create customize policies across the API Gateway.  

The solution is very stable and can scale well.

Providing easy configuration for email and SMS notifications, layout and customization of admin and developer landing pages.

We've been using this solution for last 5 years.

It's stable. There is no issue with it in that sense at all. That said, some of the customers who have faced issues have had problems in the updating part. For example, when they update something, something goes wrong. However, if they are following a proper process, they should be okay. Whenever you have to do an upgrade you should first do it in a staging environment to test it and make sure you won't have issues. If everything works properly there only then should you move into production. If somebody follows a proper IT process, then they will have no issues. We have never faced any issues and it's a perfectly stable platform as far as we are concerned.

WSO2 API Management platform can be deployed in a scalable manner where the system can handle 1000RPS with 10 - 20 KB payloads.
WSO2 API Manager can be deployed in a way where auto scaling is there so whenever there is a traffic spike the deployment can auto scale.
Also, APIs can be deployed across multiple gateways so one APIs traffic spike won't affect the rest of the gateways.

Tech support is very good. The open-source version means you have to get support from the community. However, if you have a subscription, they provide the support portal and everything is solved there. Therefore you get support directly from the project team. The engineers who developed the product directly support you sometimes and you get very good support from them. 

There are no issues with support at all. Even if you need some sort of customized help, the engineers will assist. It's very helpful.

have used 3scale earlier, to lower costs, simplify maintenance, and because WSO2 API Manager is open-source

The initial setup is not complex or overly difficult. In fact, it's pretty straightforward. The solution offers a simple and easy configuration. You can get it up and running within one or two days. The deployment doesn't take very long.

We have implemented both all-in-one deployments and distributed setup. The distributed setup is a little more complex, most of the time takes in network configurations. That said, the basic setup is very simple and fast.

We have a dedicated lab setup for trying new features, and we provide implementation and support solution to our customers.

Complete feature set in the open source version

Flexibility and extensibility

Complete platform with built-in integration and security

Single GA (generally available) edition with all features. Subscription model

Simple pricing model with per core pricing. No licensing fees for development

Each subscription also covers, at no extra fee:

• Bursting of on-premise production systems by up to two times the subscribed cores, lasting for up to 3 cumulative days during the subscription year.

• Up to 3 pre-production environments

• Individual development machines, though please note that issues arising on such systems qualify for query support rather than incident support SLAs

• Analytics Profiles

• Passive instances in an active/passive deployment

• Disaster recovery systems

• Query support hours up to a level proportional to the subscription fee

We evaluated 3scale, Apigee and Tibco

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We've been extremely happy with it so far. It's affordable and pretty easy to use overall.

We're currently evaluating WSO2 API Manager and Kong for development environments and not production environments. We're currently using Apigee and AWS API Database for the production environments. 

Its open-source features are very good, especially for your production work. If your workload's still running in an on-premises environment, WSO2 is a good product.

I like a few WSO2 plugins we're using for routing, message request transformation, or response transformation. I also like the security encryption feature.

Another thing I like about WSO2 is the nice training and tutorials they have on their website. They have my type of training on their website for API gateway and open banking. They're all self-based training, and you can go to those training pages or videos and learn in your free time.

They don't have different URLs for administrators. They should have one in place like Kong. For example, Kong has Konga as an administrative URL, where everything is available in one place for submissions and subscribers. But with WSO2, they have exposed it on a different port, and if I want to publish, I have to open a different URL with a different port for publishers and subscribers. It'll help if they can combine it on one port. WSO2 API Manager could also be somewhat cheaper.

I have been using WSO2 API Manager for more than one or two months.

It looks like a stable product.

WSO2 API Manager is a scalable solution.

WSO2 is the first open-source solution we're trying out. But we're still using Apigee from Google and AWS API Database from Amazon.

The initial setup is straightforward, and not much effort is required for installation. It's simple.

We implemented it by ourselves. It took about two people to set up and deploy.

It's not expensive, but it could be cheaper.

I would recommend it as I think it is good.  

On a scale from one to ten, I would give WSO2 API Manager an eight.

It is basically used for the integration of applications inside the organization and also for business partners outside the organization.

API management lifecycle is the most valuable.

I would like it to be a more convenient development platform with the ability to write orchestrations and so on.

Our problem with this product is that in my country, we are the only enterprise that has been using this product. We're missing a lot of knowledge from colleagues to consult with, and we also aren't able to recruit people with relevant skills. It is a big problem. The small team that is maintaining this product is the only team that can actually relate to any technical issue. The support that we're getting from the company is not great. There is also a cultural gap there because they're from Sri Lanka, and it is not easy. They're putting in a lot of effort, but they are not meeting our expectations.

I have been using this solution for three years. I have used it in production for two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have a few dozen users.

The support that we're getting from the company is not great.

It was pretty straightforward. The deployment took a couple of weeks.

We had a reseller who is not an integrator. So, we basically did everything in-house.

We only did it in a very superficial way. We didn't really evaluate.

I would say if you're looking for a simple and straightforward solution, it is probably a good idea, but if you're looking for a more advanced option, then you should go for some other solution.

I would rate WSO2 API Manager a seven out of ten.

Our primary use for this solution is to manage API, which is important to our business model and design of what we do as consultants. I found WSO2 (Web Services Oxygen Tank) was a platform that I could easily work on. All the building practices have to do with API, so when I needed a platform that could manage our API with flexibility, this was our best opportunity. It also leaves room for growth as a solution.

The product has improved our organization by simply allowing us to do things now in ways we could not do before we started using it. In the future, it will also allow us to offer expanded options to our clients.

I don't know that there is one single valuable feature. We chose the solution because it could integrate and solve multiple issues. Building blocks and all the products we need to integrate can be attached. That capability in the architecture makes it very flexible. Control is possible over even little things like that fact that I can enable and disable the logs.

The logs are well detailed and if I'm troubleshooting, it makes troubleshooting quite easier. I can test the loads and see every detail, their inquires, and their response. I think the recent changes in the WSO2 also make orchestration better. That is designing and orchestrating components is quite easy. For me, the fact that it's built upon TomCat makes everything easier for me. These are all very valuable features.

It is a very good product, but still, there are some things I think can be improved. I think the interface is the one that comes to mind first. The interface should be much more user-friendly and modern.

If you look at other products and their modern user interfaces, you could see what the other companies are doing and what you could be doing. A nice look and feel is something that can impress a user, and it can be trendy and inviting. I think the user interface for now for the WSO2 is not really there yet. The one complaint I get from our business team is the same: they find it not that user-friendly and this makes it more difficult for them to use. It takes some experience to get around.

Another feature which I love but can also be improved is usability in terms of switching across the different components of the product. You could have just the user management console and some adjustment in design would make us have less trouble navigating. But the components are all separate. You have to access the publisher console, and then they have a flash publisher. Then you have the store, and more. It is just many things you have to know.

So there are different interfaces. I would love a situation where you should be able to just have a single interface where you're executing your role per security. Depending on the role you have, will determine what you can do. I don't have to switch across different interfaces before I could access the publisher using the same roles if I am assigned the privilege.

Lastly, another feature I think is needed is in the area of customization. Before you can make any custom changes, you have to be very technical. But it's a bit difficult to make changes depending on what you need to accomplish. The documentation is also not that straight forward and could use work.

You have to make a whole lot of changes to the framework. It's a framework, which I think is something that can be more efficient. It's not the common framework that you see in today's development as we have in other products. It is a custom framework that we use for the product.

I think for now that really all of the problems are summarized by the interface. They need to invest more on the front end. I know sometimes people will want to work as a back-end guy and that should remain. I think they should invest more on the user interface, user experience to make it better for less technical people.

I would rate the stability good because the building block that we used was TomCat and I know TomCat. For me, it is very simple work with and very stable.

As far as scalability, we always use the products on a high demand development because I know the initial communications that I've experienced for myself with TomCat. Because I worked with TomCat for a number of years and I know that TomCat has a maximum capacity. But I didn't know how WS02 manages and used the ability of all its feature pool, so I won't be able to give a comment on that. But this is something we will explore more in our next development project. There is one new project that we have that is going to require a very high demand environment.

We design applications to appease the capabilities of the environment and the client. We pick up on stability by evaluating data transactions per second. So if I get to use the API in more of the client environments and with different configurations then I would know more. But I don't think we have even yet pushed it to its potential.

I have not had to contact technical support as essentially I am technical support. So far, everything is good and I haven't had any reason to contact them.

The initial setup for a technical person like myself is not difficult. Once you download the installation, all you do is start from the dependencies, which is from the JAVA and the database. I think for me, the setup is pretty straightforward and will be for other technical people.

We do all of our own installations and installations for our clients as well.

WS02 is really the first API manager I have used, or I have used API management but not with this kind of flexibility. In terms of know-how and getting to know about the API Manager, we currently only use it only internally. We do some consulting, and so we tried other solutions to solve other problems for them and ourselves. We tried some telecommunications products, but they did not have an application that manages the API. We tried Apache Camel. Out of several different products, I was excited to see a similar application that would manage API as well. Several of the other products I found pretty easy to use, but that is not the main criteria. Maybe those products would be useful for consulting and what we offer clients. But this is the product that was best for the integrated solutions we needed.

Right now we are using only the main part of the product. It is an internal application only for deployment at our company at the moment. We haven't deployed the product across to clients for now because they will have to be very technical, and it is almost the nature of clients who use consultants that they may not always be the most technical or want to use difficult products.

The experience we are building internally is something we do look forward to sharing. We do have one client who is considering the product. They want to use it similar to how we do as a local API, and we intend to expose it as a possible solution in our business plan for them. We are open to having new clients use it in the near future.

The advice I have for any of the organizations or companies looking for an API manager is that they, first of all, verify the building block before selecting a product. For me it is Apache, and I know the amount of work that goes towards Apache, how much has to go into TomCat. If we take on clients with a similar need it would make support rather easy for us to provide for them and we can be very efficient.

Secondly, the product is an open-source community build-up. The WS02 organization is its own company providing support. I grew with the product from the time I started to develop with it until now. I've been able to see the changes and how it has evolved. I know in WS02 ESB, now its called Enterprise Integrations. It shows its a growing community, it shows that it has the potential to be a great community. We can work with it for a long time as well as incorporate solutions in the technology that is out there today.

The longevity and growth of the product can help people to trust and use the product.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate it an eight. It is an eight and not a ten because of the interface. But it is an eight, which is a good rating because I haven't seen any other vendor that provides a similar platform. You can use the platform directly or you can operate on the platform using the exposed API. I think that makes an exciting API that you can make use of in many different ways. There is no competitor that has more connections or offers such a platform.

WSO2 API Manager provides OAuth2 token capabilities that our customers use to interact, onboard new customers, and provide approvals whenever a customer is onboarded.

The solution’s interface should be more user-friendly.

I have been working with WSO2 API Manager for seven to nine years.

WSO2 API Manager is an open-source solution.

Recommending WSO2 API Manager to customers depends on their use cases. It's the customer's choice rather than our choice. WSO2 API Manager provides good support for API lifecycle management. We are satisfied with the solution and implemented it with one of the government organizations in India to deploy and manage their APIs. The solution's developer portal feature has improved the developer experience.

We charge our customers based on their IDs, secrets, the services they use, and how frequently they use them. We use WSO2 API Manager only for API management. We recommend the solution to customers based on their budget and whether they want an open-source solution or an open-source tool with technical support and minimal licensing cost.

The solution provides good documentation.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We use API Manager to publish our microservice for the public. We also use it because of its integrated functionality. We are researching many kinds of functions with WSO2, not only WSO2 management.

The most interesting feature is its Mac-based function. We want to use the API Manager to unify our microservice and then publish the service outside. In the future we want to combine it with our service. But we haven't implemented it for other Mac-based work, yet. This is an interesting element.

WSO2 API Manager is a little complex to use. I think the user interface could be improved. 

Additionally, the installation setup is a little complex. I think in future versions I would like to see some improvements in the system's installation.

I have been using WSO2 API Manager for about half a year.

We deployed directly to the API Manager, and when we tested the performance we got a memory error. I don't know where or how to solve it. Maybe the memory size, or other setup parameters can solve this problem. I'm not sure whether it's an issue of stability, but it's an issue. We think this problem can be solved by many methods. Fundamentally, the problem is a general memory problem, not necessarily a WSO2 API Manager problem.

We are discussing use keys in our organization. Maybe some end user will come for testing and we can fully deploy the API Manager to be used every day.

API Manager is not easy to scale because some of its components lack scalability. It's a difficult point. Especially because companies are so cloud-based these days, microservice scalability is a major thing.

We have only contacted support two times.

We did discuss several different options but we liked WSO2 API Manager because it is an open source system. So we think it's better for our current needs.

The initial setup is not easy. There are many different components which need to be coordinated. The way that you receive the public's message interface is very complex.

Initial setup took two or three weeks the first time. It's not a perfect system or setup.

We had two people working on the installation but not full time.

We installed the system by ourselves.

I recommend this product. I think WSO2 API Manager is good. I'd like to recommend the system to others.

On a scale of one to ten I would rate WSO2 API Manager an eight.

We use WSO2 API Manager to manage APIs.

WSO2 API Manager's most valuable features are the simple interface that is easy to use and the APIs lifecycle.

WSO2 API Manager could improve the API approval system.

I have been using WSO2 API Manager for approximately one year.

The stability of the WSO2 API Manager is good.

We have used the open-source version, but I'm we have now switched to the enterprise version, I am not of the differences. The rate-limiting in the open-source seems not to work. When I add buy limits, it does not work correctly. I do not think this issue is in the enterprise version.

This solution is suitable for medium to large businesses.

The technical support from the WSO2 API Manager is very good. When there is an issue they fix the ticket very quickly.

I have not used other API management systems.

The initial setup of WSO2 API Manager is simple.

WSO2 API Manager is a low-cost solution. It is one of the most affordable solutions. 

I find the solution to be good overall. The solution is receiving a lot of attention and is attracting investors.

I rate WSO2 API Manager a seven out of ten.