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Azure API Management vs. Blackbird API Development

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Azure API Management

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft's Azure API Management supports creation of API.

    $0.04

    per 10,000 calls

    Blackbird API Development

    Score10 out of 10
    N/AAmbassador offers a suite of products designed to deliver API developer experiences that fuel innovation. Blackbird API Development Platform enables developers to spec, mock, write boilerplate code, and debug APIs faster.

    $10

    per month (for a single user and 5 concurrent instances)

    Pricing
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    Editions & Modules
    Consumption
    0.042 per 10,000 calls
    Lightweight and serverless version of API Management service, billed per execution
    Developer
    $48.04
    per month Non-production use cases and evaluations
    Basic
    $147.17
    per month Entry-level production use cases
    Standard
    $686.72
    per month Medium-volume production use cases
    Premium
    $2,795.17
    per month High-volume or enterprise production use cases
    Isolated
    TBA
    per month Enterprise production use cases requiring high degree of isolation
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    API Management
    Comparison of API Management features of Azure API Management and Blackbird API Development
    Feature
    Azure API Management
    8.0
    4 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Blackbird API Development
    -
    Ratings
    API access control8.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    Rate limits and usage policies5.44 Ratings00 Ratings
    API usage data8.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    API user onboarding9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    API versioning8.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    Usage billing and payments5.23 Ratings00 Ratings
    API monitoring and logging9.84 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    Small Businesses
    Amazon API Gateway
    Score7.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Amazon API Gateway
    Score7.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    OCI API Management
    Score7.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Azure API ManagementBlackbird API Development
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    APIM is useful for the standard scenarios:
    1) Securing your back-end APIs - If you have a legacy back-end web service that has a basic authentication scheme, you can add some additional security by placing APIM in front, and requiring subscription keys. Leverage your existing firewall to ensure only your APIM instance can communicate with your back-end API, and you've basically added a layer of protection.
    2) Lift and shift - there are always going to be clients that don't want to update their clients to use a newer API; in some cases you can make a newer API look like an older one by implementing some complex policies in APIM. You can also do the opposite, making older APIs look new, such as making an XML back-end accept both JSON and XML.
    3) Centralizing your APIs - if you've acquired another company and want to make their API set look as if it's a part of the larger whole, APIM is an easy way to provide a consistent front-end interface for developers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    Ambassador is really well suited for scenarios were you need to give power and freedom to your developers so they can take advantage of the self-service approach. One of the few scenarios I can not recommend using Ambassador is in the case you are planning to not using Kubernetes as it is a solution designed to work specifically on that platform
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Easy commissioning of APIs.
    • Great policies to control access.
    • Easy mock services for testing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    • Simple syntax
    • Easy to understand
    • Easy to install
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Lack of robustness is a bit of an issue. Several other providers offer more options and capabilities, but then, they are lacking in interface ease.
    • As with anything Azure, pricing is really hard to stay on top of. I always find that you really don’t know what you’re paying for until you get the bill. Having an excellent Azure Administrator can help resolve that.
    • Integrating with app services outside of Azure can be a challenge, or at least much more challenging than just using Azure App Services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    • Documentation is not updated
    • Implementing external authentication doesn't always work as described in the documentation
    • The Administration console is limited
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    It's great! it's amazingly simple to use and the best part is the self-service approach. I also like how easy it is to add a new route to a endpoint with the mappings definition.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    Overall the support has been great and quick to answer the requests I've submitted in the past. I was originally using the community/open source version and I can't say it was the best experience I had, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great. I believe the biggest issue was that they refer to the documentation a lot but the documentation isn't updated regularly so I feel it's lagging behind the most recent versions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    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
    Read full review
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    They both offer about the same in terms of end goal and purpose of use and scenarios. However, Ambassador does way better in terms of simplifying the syntax and makes offer a little bit more of control by adding the concepts of hosts, mappings while staying away from a hard to read single file configuration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • We can always think of positive ROI impact on business
    • It helps to easily facilitate the design, deployment, and maintenance of our APIs
    Read full review
    Datawire, Inc., dba Ambassador
    • Reduced downtime by redirecting traffic between DC.
    • Reduced engineering time, don't have to dedicate 1 person to manage it.
    • Increased training costs in the short term.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots