Azure API Management vs. WSO2 API Manager

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

WSO2 is a unique product that provides pre-integrated components like Gateway, Integrator, identity management, etc. Hence it is best suited when the requirement is not just only publish the APIs but also to secure and transform the APIs. WSO2 can be an overhead if only Gateway is required, as there are other very lightweight gateways available in the market.

Incentivized

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

• API Security
• API Transformation
• API Monetization

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

• Installation of this product is a hell. You need to be an expert to get this running together with WSO2 Analytics. It uses a really confusing method of "port + 1" to connect extra products. I guess this was meant to provide a handy way to add new WSO2 products. In reality you'll need to scroll through numerous config files to set this straight. If you use this out of the box, everything will work all right. But the moment you add SSL certificates, DNS names and you'll need special ports to configure your firewall, this product becomes unmaintainable.
• The "Store" provides a nice way to group API's. However, the "Publisher" does not... if you have more than 30 API's searching for API's becomes really annoying.
• The number of configs in this product is huge. As a developer myself, I've never seen (and definitely never created) a product that needed that much config files. Installation and maintenance of products should be stupidly simple, since no developer nor infrastructure person wants to learn something that "just" needs to be a tool.. opposed to being a whole new area of expertise. After using WSO2 API Manager for a while, we wanted to change the admin password... this should be simple enough, like just change the password in "Carbon." But nope. The whole WSO2 environment crashed. We just gave up. Too dangerous.
• Why so many different "products"? Publisher, Store, Carbon, and numerous hidden interfaces. Analytics, ESB whatever... No wonder there are so many config files and port issues. Make it simple!!!

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

Nevatech Sentinet: The easiest API Manager available. No knowledge of how the product works internally needed! It works with C# (not java... with all it's config files... really? Java developers?). Great way to categorize API's into groups (domains). All of which is drama in WSO2. But Sentinel is really expensive... Mulesoft: Nice and clean. Again, no expert knowledge needed of how the product works internally. Like using word... or any other application, except WSO2. Have java developers never heard of exposing configurations through a user inyterface?? Mulesoft, however is really expensive. Azure: Not cheap!! And a chaotic interface too. But it pays! If you have a Microsoft account already, this is your next step. We chose WSO2 4 years ago because it was free... but we're moving to azure now. And we're very happy with that decision.

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

• Positive impact on continuity and API standardization.

Incentivized