Azure API Management vs. Envoy Visitors

The range of policies that enable the APIs to loosely couple it with security, rate limit, retry, etc. are good. We can easily tie authentication mechanisms to external and other internal services without having to modify the backend.

Incentivized

If your company is embracing the hybrid workforce, then Envoy would be a great solution for you. Its ability to streamline the process of registering your visit so that others can see when and where you'll be in the office encourages others to visit the office as well. You’re also able to confirm certain vaccination statuses and confirm whether or not visitors have had any sickness symptoms prior to their visit. Very easy-to-use and attractive interface.

Incentivized

• Management of APIs
• Security of the API through Azure AD, AD B2C etc.
• Providing an outer layer through APIs

• Easily track and manage who is in your office.
• Better security, as you know who is or was in your office.

Incentivized

• Cost - the upfront cost is a bit restrictive. I've been told it is because there are a few underlying VMs that are running this service. So if you're just starting out with API management, it can be an expensive proposition. Value increases as you add additional APIs. If you're using Azure B2C for the developer portal, you'll require Standard or Premium since they support AAD integration.
• Security granularity - at time of writing, APIM doesn't support breaking out operations to products. For example, if you have an API that has a GET and a POST operation, and you want the POST operation to require a different subscription. There is a work around, but it makes management a bit messy.
• Developer and Publisher portal - it's a little weird. Microsoft hasn't migrated all the publisher portal functionality into the "native" Azure portal. So some of it feels a little weird - especially when working with the content management side of things for the developer portal.
• Scaling - while it's easy to scale up, the cost of APIM ramps up very quickly. Standard -> Premium is a 4x jump.

Incentivized

• There aren't any features that are hard to use
• In my opinion, I wish I can have an "idiot button" for visitors to press when they say "This is too complicated..."
• I wouldn't mind if it were more personalized. Like to change a font color or background to match with a particular user.

Easy to Setup. Organizations benefit from a simple onboarding procedure. Feature richness. Provides guest pre-registration, badge printing, and security warnings. Customizability Options for customizing the experience include branding, processes, and compliance needs. Integrations. Compatible with other technologies such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and access control systems. I like it lot.

I don't know exactly how good the support is, but I'm giving it a 10 because I haven't had to use the support team. The platforms that work and don't make you reach out to support deserve to be recognized, and this is my way of doing that. Grateful for technology that works.

Incentivized

Azure APIM vs Amazon API Gateway:

1) Azure APIM was a complete package that included a developer portal.

2) We are very Microsoft centric - so the Microsoft product suite aligned very well with our business needs.

3) It was faster and easier to stand up Azure APIM for testing than it was for the Amazon API Gateway.

Incentivized

Envoy visitors compare very favorably against competitors, with its easy-to-use portal and flexibility, together with a low-cost space helps make it an easy decision to deploy and integrate into any small, medium, or large size companies. It has a good reputation in the industry and the staff are knowledgeable and extremely friendly.

Incentivized

• It’s really pay as you go, so it's not that costly to get in and try it out. There’s no expensive client to buy and manage, but you do need to stay on top of the rapidly changing Azure environment to be sure you upgrade or adjust when needed.
• It’s not great having more than one API tool, but it’s ok to spread out your work, as you always want the right tool for the right job. For example, if you are a Salesforce-heavy organization, I’d go with Mule over Azure.
• It was easy getting an external consultant access to the tool to build their own API for a project they were working on for us.

Incentivized

• We joined very early in Envoy's history so we are on a (now obsolete) plan that provides quite a lot of features at a fair price.
• Looking at their current pricing model and feature set per tier, it is apparent that the system is aimed at enterprise customers and shared office spaces with many tenants.

Incentivized