Best API Gateways of 2024

Use the comparison tool below to compare the top API Gateways on the market. You can filter results by user reviews, pricing, features, platform, region, support options, integrations, and more.

API Gateways Overview

An API Gateway is a type of intermediary software that acts as a bridge between different services, applications, and devices. It’s responsible for routing requests from clients to the appropriate backend services, functions or servers in order to fulfil requests. This is why an API Gateway is often called an "API Gateway" as it usually sits between the external world and internal systems in a company’s architecture.

API Gateways can provide many features such as secure access control mechanisms (authentication/authorization), rate limiting, monitoring, request throttling and more across various back-end services and APIs of different types. They can help with cost management by allowing for caching of response data from 3rd party APIs and also offer additional security measures like encryption and token validation. Additionally, they can provide users with detailed analytics on latency performance across their APIs so they can identify any problem areas.

API Gateways are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to abstract common tasks away from individual application developers, allowing them to focus on developing other aspects of the applications themselves instead of worrying about cross-cutting concerns like authentication or throughput management. In addition to this, API Gateways allow companies to create unified interface definitions that define how different microservices should be exposed externally through the gateway which helps reduce development time and errors caused by manually coding each endpoint separately.

In short; an API Gateway is a serverless service that provides centralized access control, routing, load balancing and other important functions for managing traffic across multiple application architectures with ease. It allows developers to create unified interfaces from various microservices without having to worry about authentication or rate requirements while providing added security measures like encryption and token validation for increased safety

Reasons To Use API Gateways

1. Unification of Services: API gateways allow services to be unified, meaning instead of having to manage multiple endpoints from different services, you can have a single point of entry into the system. This makes it much easier for developers to find and interact with system resources.
2. Single Security Point: With an API gateway, all requests must first go through the gateway before they are sent to their respective destinations. This allows organizations to apply security measures such as authentication and authorization at one central point, rather than implementing it across all applications individually.
3. Rate Limiting & Protection Against Abuse: APIs are often subject to abuse by malicious actors due to their unrestricted access points and excessive request volumes. Using an API gateway helps mitigate this risk by enforcing rate limits as well as monitoring traffic patterns for suspicious activity before delivering a response back to the client application.
4. Reduced Latency & Improved Performance: By reducing network latency and providing better performance, such as caching frequently accessed requests or even entire responses, an API gateway can improve response times for clients and reduce load on backend services significantly.
5. Increased Reliability & Uptime: By propagating retries whenever possible when dealing with failed requests (e.g., connection timeouts), or removing faulty nodes from service delivery paths entirely; an API gateway can help further increase reliability when compared with direct calls made towards backend services alone

The Importance of API Gateways

API gateways are an important part of a modern IT infrastructure, as they play a key role in providing both security and efficiency for many different types of applications. In most cases, when an application needs to communicate with external services, the API gateway is used to protect it from unauthorized access and data breaches. This protects important company information and customer data from being loss or stolen.

Moreover, the API gateway is key to efficient service communication. Instead of having multiple separate processes running in order to make callouts from the application server to each external service that’s needed, the API gateway provides central access control that can be scaled up or down as needed. This helps with keeping code more organized while making sure traffic is efficiently routed to where it needs to go within your organization’s technology stack.

Additionally, by leveraging caching at the API gateway level, your application will be able to process requests faster than if those same requests were being sent out directly from the application server for processing each time without caching enabled. For example, let’s say you have an online store with 10 popular products listed on your home page - instead of every user requesting product data individually from your backend database each time they visit your site (which would strain resources), you can use caching at your API gateway level so only one request goes out per product and all subsequent requests during that session just pull cached results until that cache expires. With this setup everyone gets quick responses without sacrificing performance due to increased traffic strain on backend server resources.

Overall API gateways provide essential services such as protecting data integrity and improving communications between applications while also improving overall website performance by enabling caching features - making them an essential part of any modern IT infrastructure today.

Features Provided by API Gateways

1. Authentication: API gateways provide user authentication through access tokens and other methods, so the system can verify that the user is authorized to use certain services. They also provide authorization of users for certain functions, ensuring that only those with permission can access them.
2. Rate Limiting: To ensure performance for all users, rate limiting can be applied to restrict the number of requests or queries coming in at any one time or over a certain period. This will make sure that there is enough capacity for everyone and guarantee response times remain low.
3. Route Selection: An API gateway allows you to route different calls to different endpoints on the servers, such as directing clients connecting from Europe to an endpoint in Europe while those connecting from Asia get directed to an endpoint in another part of the world. This helps maintain an acceptable level of latency and ensures consistency between requests.
4. Security: Many gateways allow developers to enhance security by enabling encryption, enforcing TLS (Transport Layer Security) standards, and scanning incoming payloads for malicious code before they reach the servers themselves. This prevents cyber criminals from accessing sensitive data and preventing disruptions caused by DDoS attacks along with other malicious activities.
5. Caching & Logging: Caching enables frequently requested data stored responses like images and text snippets to be returned faster than fetching them from their source every single time; this reduces load times considerably when done correctly and efficiently as it limits trips across networks . On top of that logging also becomes easy when using a platform-level service – application components emit log messages during use which are then easily made accessible via a modern dashboard or standard back-end logs

Who Can Benefit From API Gateways?

• Developers: API gateways can provide developers with greater flexibility in creating and managing their applications. They can be used to manage authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and other features that are necessary for a secure application.
• Businesses: Businesses can benefit from an API gateway as it can help them better manage access to their APIs by external parties such as partners or customers. It also eliminates the need for custom coding when integrating with third-party services.
• Security Professionals: An API gateway helps create a secure environment by providing a single point of entry into the system, protecting back-end systems from malicious attacks. Companies that use data-centric architectures will especially benefit from an API gateway’s security capabilities.
• DevOps Teams: An API gateway makes life easier for DevOps teams since its robust logging capabilities allow them to easily monitor and troubleshoot issues within their APIs.
• FinTech Firms: Financial technology firms often deal with large volumes of transactions and sensitive customer data which requires strict access control measures. An API gateway provides reliability along with powerful security features while facilitating low latency transactions between backend systems and clients.

How Much Do API Gateways Cost?

The cost of an API gateway can vary significantly depending on the type and complexity of the solution that you require. For basic solutions, there may be no cost involved, as open source solutions exist. However, for enterprise-level solutions that are cloud-based and include additional features such as authentication, traffic management, analytics and notifications, prices can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month. These costs usually scale with usage, so it is important to determine your approximate level of utilization of the gateway when selecting an appropriate solution. Additionally, many gateways offer free trials or limited introductions periods so that businesses can get familiar with their product before making any commitments or investments.

Risk Associated With API Gateways

• Security: API Gateways can be a point of attack for malicious actors, as it is a single entry point to access all back-end services.API Gateways are vulnerable to Denial of service attacks, code injection and other types of cyber-attacks which could result in significant data loss or corruption.
• Performance: The performance of the API Gateway can have an effect on the overall performance of the system as any latency issues can slow down requests originating from clients and reduce throughput.
• Scalability: If traffic spikes occur, API gateways may not be able to scale up quickly enough, resulting in bottlenecks or even complete unavailability.
• Context Switching: In order to properly route requests and responses, the gateway must handle contextual awareness between each call (e.g., different authentication procedures), leading potential developer errors due to improper parsing or incorrect routing logic implementations.

What Software Do API Gateways Integrate With?

API gateways can be integrated with a variety of types of software, including back-end services, databases, and other applications. Back-end services such as authentication servers or service meshes usually provide the necessary layer of security around a system's APIs. Databases can also integrate with an API gateway to manage data and store information in a secure manner. Finally, applications can tap into an API gateway to programmatically control access to its features and facilitate communication between different pieces of software. By integrating these different types of software into an API gateway, businesses are able to securely manage their data and create sophisticated systems that allow for the smooth exchange of information across multiple components.

Questions To Ask When Considering API Gateways

1. What specific features does the API gateway offer?
2. Will it work with existing infrastructure and processes?
3. Is the API gateway scalable to accommodate increased traffic, if needed?
4. How secure is the API gateway against malicious attacks and data breaches?
5. Can the API gateway provide additional customization options, such as custom headers and query parameters?
6. Does the API gateway support multiple protocols, including REST, SOAP or GraphQL?
7. Is there an API endpoint performance monitoring system in place to track latency and errors?
8. Are there any limitations on rate limiting or caching that could affect performance of APIs connected via this gateway?
9. Are there any options for client authentication and authorization mechanisms, such as OAuth 2.0 or JSON Web Tokens (JWTs)?
10. Will I have access to real-time logging information from each request made through the API gateways for troubleshooting purposes?