Amazon API Gateway vs. IBM API Connect vs. NGINX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon API Gateway
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
AWS offers the Amazon API Gateway supports the creation and publication of an API for web applications, as well as its monitoring and maintenance. The Amazon API Gateway is able to support thousands of API calls concurrently and provides traffic management, as well as monitoring and access control.
$0.90
Per Million
IBM API Connect
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
IBM API Connect is a scalable API solution that helps organizations implement a robust API strategy by creating, exposing, managing and monetizing an entire API ecosystem across multiple clouds. As businesses embrace their digital transformation journey, APIs become critical to unlock the value of business data and assets. With increasing adoption of APIs, consistency and governance are needed across the enterprise. API Connect aims to help businesses…
$83
per month
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software products o tackle some of the biggest challenges in managing high-transaction applications. NGINX offers a suite of products to form the core of what organizations need to create…N/A
Pricing
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Editions & Modules
Past 300 Million
$0.90
Per Million
First 300 Million
$1.00
Per Million
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Free Trial
NoYesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Considered Multiple Products
Amazon API Gateway
Chose Amazon API Gateway
Nginx is a powerful tool but configuring, running and maintaining but Nginx will never be a competitive advantage for our business. API Gateway is powerful because it is managed and does what we need out-of-the-box. Nginx is used more widely in the community; it may be easier …
IBM API Connect
Chose IBM API Connect
Ease of use of the product and pricing of the product.
Chose IBM API Connect
There were multiple product we read and then shortlist were taken as POC against IBM API Connect.
-Google Apigee : is good but in cross cloud there are concerns. Also, feature of reading & identifying the target system certificate was not available there.
Chose IBM API Connect
It was organizational boundaries to use IBM API Connect but we have learnt so many think on this technology. Obviously, We have more experience on this it;s easy for us to configure and maintain the system.
Chose IBM API Connect
Its depend on the business use case. Sometime we have to got through the in deep to technologies so we can;t use such built-in kind of services.
Chose IBM API Connect
There are two main reasons for choosing IBM over others. 1) Pricing 2) The conversation during the sales stage. The team at IBM understood our requirements and acted as consultants instead of sales people. They genuinely focused on providing a solution to our pain points which …
Chose IBM API Connect
As we have already have deep work relationship with IBM, when it comes to API gateway, we start looking at the API service IBM provides. And that is when we found out IBM API connect. It is very reliable and convenient tool to manage our API. It works with our cloud agnostic …
NGINX

No answer on this topic

Features
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
API Management
Comparison of API Management features of Product A and Product B
Amazon API Gateway
9.1
14 Ratings
8% above category average
IBM API Connect
8.4
57 Ratings
0% below category average
NGINX
-
Ratings
API access control9.013 Ratings8.957 Ratings00 Ratings
Rate limits and usage policies10.013 Ratings8.952 Ratings00 Ratings
API usage data8.013 Ratings8.755 Ratings00 Ratings
API user onboarding8.013 Ratings8.656 Ratings00 Ratings
API versioning9.013 Ratings8.356 Ratings00 Ratings
Usage billing and payments10.012 Ratings7.545 Ratings00 Ratings
API monitoring and logging10.014 Ratings8.156 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
Amazon API Gateway
-
Ratings
IBM API Connect
-
Ratings
NGINX
8.7
32 Ratings
9% above category average
IDE support00 Ratings00 Ratings7.617 Ratings
Security management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Administration and management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.827 Ratings
Application server performance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.327 Ratings
Installation00 Ratings00 Ratings8.929 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(14 ratings)
8.8
(50 ratings)
8.9
(50 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(43 ratings)
8.3
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon API GatewayIBM API ConnectNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Experienced a lack of available programming languages while working on a minor project. I had to halt the project and wait for it to be added later. It took ages and had a hit on our productivity. It has a centralized management system which helps and an easy interface which helps to manage multiple tasks in case of large-scale operations and projects.
Read full review
IBM
Based on our experience, IBM API Connect clearly excels in large enterprises navigating complex B2B ecosystems, especially within the Fintech and Banking sectors. Its capabilities are particularly valuable for achieving Open Banking compliance, facilitating the monetization of data and services, and seamlessly operating in hybrid cloud environments. However, it's crucial to understand that IBM API Connect primarily functions as an API management and orchestration tool. This means that backend integrations with providers like databases are best handled by dedicated integration middleware, such as IBM App Connect, allowing API Connect to then securely and efficiently expose those functionalities to external entities.
Read full review
F5
Nginx is well-suited for any web server scenarios, such as web applications, backend or reverse proxy for both application and HTTP requests, and distribution. It is less appropriate for Windows-based applications that run directly on a Windows Server host. In any case, it is very easy to manage, through separate conf files for each application or site you want to host with it.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • API Gateway integrates well with AWS Lambda. This allows us to build a web server in the language and framework of our choice, deploy it as a Lambda function, and expose it through API Gateway.
  • API Gateway manages API keys. Building rate limiting and request quota features are not trivial (or interesting).
  • API Gateway's pricing can be very attractive for services that are accessed infrequently.
Read full review
IBM
  • API discovery feature is very helpful to allow us to scope the work required before diving into things.
  • The ability to set permissions and rulesets at a user level is essential to restrict access to specific datasets.
  • Ability for external users (those from outside our organisation) to leverage the API in more restrictive manner.
Read full review
F5
  • Very low memory usage. Can handle many more connections than alternatives (like Apache HTTPD) due to low overhead. (event-based architecture).
  • Great at serving static content.
  • Scales very well. Easy to host multiple Nginx servers to promote high availability.
  • Open-Source (no cost)!
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Client certificates are troublesome when trying to attach them to API GW stages.
  • Debugging across several services can be difficult when API GW is integrated with Route 53 and another service like Lambda or EC2/ELB.
  • Creating internal/private APIs, particularly with custom domains, can be unintuitive.
Read full review
IBM
  • Improvement can come in the interface of the tool, which is sometimes complex and requires a deep understanding of the tool.
  • Improving the different levels of access to the playroom could be helpful because product owners and developers need to see other information.
  • Publishing API and integration of API can be more straightforward.
Read full review
F5
  • Customer support can be strangely condescending, perhaps it's a language issue?
  • I find it a little weird how the release versions used for Nginx+ aren't the same as for open source version. It can be very confusing to determine the cross-compatibility of modules, etc., because of this.
  • It seems like some (most?) modules on their own site are ancient and no longer supported, so their documentation in this area needs work.
  • It's difficult to navigate between nginx.com commercial site and customer support. They need to be integrated together.
  • I'd love to see more work done on nginx+ monitoring without requiring logging every request. I understand that many statistics can only be derived from logs, but plenty should work without that. Logging is not an option in many environments.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
IBM
No answers on this topic
F5
Great value for the product
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
It is a great product very reliable and stable for connecting various aws services like we connected with lambda function and it is working very well, never faced any issue after the setup. It also saves out lots of money as well as time after we implemented the automatic ec2 server recovery system
Read full review
IBM
I can honestly say that the availability of the platform has been incredible, with almost no disruptions during the two years of the implementation. Availability is provided through the distributed architecture that may be deployed in multiple zones. We have had almost no cases of unplanned outages, and most maintenance operations were done during planned downtimes.
Read full review
F5
This tool is really easy to use and configure. Consumes very less system resources. It is highly modular and configurable. You can easily use it with other tools like certbot for SSLs. You can configure basic security with configuration and headers
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
We always had a great experience with the AWS support team. They were always on time and very dependable. It was a good partnership while we worked to resolve our issues.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
F5
Community support is great, and they've also had a presence at conferences. Overall, there is no shortage of documentation and community support. We're currently using it to serve up some WordPress sites, and configuring NGINX for this purpose is well documented.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
When we tested Azure API Management at the time, it had serious connectivity issues, it was very unstable, and it needed to do a lot using the command line. Comparing with the AWS solution, which was more mature, and the fact that we have services in use on AWS, we ended up choosing to continue using AWS products. This so as not to run the risk of increasing latency in accesses, and of some functionality not working, due to being developed yet.
Read full review
IBM
IBM API Connect and Apigee are both robust API management platforms. IBM API Connect was selected for its strong integration capabilities, hybrid cloud deployment options, and comprehensive analytics. It aligns well with organizations seeking flexibility and control over their API ecosystems, especially when dealing with complex integration scenarios across diverse environments.
Read full review
F5
I have found that [NGINX] seems to perform better throughout the years with less issues although I've used Apache more. I would definitely recommend [NGINX] for any high volume site and I've seen this to usually be the case from most provided web hosts who will pick [NGINX] over alternatives
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • ROI is negative, you need either to hire them to work with you or spend days/weeks to figure out issues.
  • For some of the projects in the end it is not worth it, it is just a "buzz" to use serverless but not practical.
  • Service is easy to set up authorization and it is easy to manage.
Read full review
IBM
  • Our company benefited from IBM API Connect's assistance in establishing cooperation with our outside providers and efficiently managing the API. As a result, we were able to expand our vendor ecosystem.
  • Additionally, creating APIs and implementing them on the goods was not too difficult. Additionally, we were able to ensure that only appropriate people could publish the APIs following evaluation by using role-based access control.
  • Our teams were able to reuse and share departmental APIs and services with each other thanks to the simple, self-service developer site.
Read full review
F5
  • By using Nginx, we can host multiple web services on a single server, keeping our infrastructure costs lower.
  • Nginx maintains our HTTPS connections, allowing us to keep our promise to our customers that their data is safe in transit.
  • Due to Nginx's extremely low failure rate, our web addresses always return something meaningful, even when individual services go down. In sense, this means we are "always online" and allows us to maintain brand and support our customers even in the face of catastrophe.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM API Connect Screenshots

Screenshot of API tests and insightsScreenshot of API Manager customization interfaceScreenshot of the API designer

NGINX Screenshots

Screenshot of Overview of the NGINX Application PlatformScreenshot of NGINX Controller - MonitoringScreenshot of NGINX Controller - Configuration