In the ever-evolving landscape of software development, effective API management is more critical than ever. Organizations are navigating a sea of options, seeking solutions that seamlessly integrate with modern development practices and infrastructure. Traditional API management systems are no longer adequate.
Read on to learn what modern API management systems look like, and how to find the best one for your business.
Key Capabilities of an API Management System
According to Gartner, by 2027, an estimated 90% of global organizations will have adopted cloud-native container workloads – a testament to the widespread transformation of businesses today. It’s important that these organizations have robust API management systems. We believe these with seven capabilities are key:
- Architecture: Consider an API management solution that incorporates the architectural needs of an environment and has support for cloud-native design, ARM processor support, serverless support, packaging and deployment, and more.
- Scalability and performance: How a solution can scale reliably as organizations grow is important and organizations should look for solutions with auto scaling functionality, resiliency, and load-balancing, and more.
- Developer experience and documentation: Ensure a solution has an ecosystem catalog alongside GitOps capabilities.
- Security and governance: A modern API management system must securely provide accessibility, authentication, and traffic management features and capabilities to build the foundation for zero trust security.
- Flexibility and customization: API management solutions should have easy to use customization options.
- Observability and monitoring: Consider API solutions that have built in observability functions including, benchmarking logging, metrics, and analytic functions.
- Supportability: Look for strong documentation, long-term enterprise support, and community backing of each solution.
These features will enable organizations to host and scale their services effectively while maintaining control of costs.
Comparing API Gateway Solutions
There are now hundreds of API service providers on the market, spanning from those designed for legacy systems to those built for new cloud-native workloads. We’ve analyzed the five leading API gateway solutions:
- Gloo Gateway by Solo.io
- Apigee
- Kong
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Tyk
In our Buyer’s Guide, we look at each of these solutions and delve into the key features outlined above for each. Our guide helps organizations make informed decisions that align with their specific use cases and operational needs.
Learn More
Download the full Buyer’s Guide and unlock insights into the leading API gateway solutions. Empower your organization with the tools it needs to thrive in the cloud-native era.
If you’re looking to learn more about API gateways, take our 30-minute API Gateway Basics course.
