Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX is an API gateway developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It is designed to manage and control incoming API traffic for businesses of various sizes. The product is targeted at professionals and industries such as software developers, DevOps engineers, IT managers, e-commerce companies, and financial services organizations.

Key Features

Load Balancing: Apache APISIX offers load balancing functionality to evenly distribute incoming traffic across multiple backend servers. It supports various load balancing algorithms, including round-robin, least connection, and IP hash.

Dynamic Upstream: Apache APISIX supports dynamic upstream configuration, allowing for seamless addition or removal of backend servers without disrupting the service. This feature provides flexibility to adapt to factors such as health checks, traffic load, or custom criteria.

Canary Release: Apache APISIX enables canary release deployments, facilitating controlled rollouts of new features or updates to a subset of users. This feature allows for testing new functionalities in a real production environment while minimizing the impact on the overall system.

Circuit Breaking: Apache APISIX includes circuit breaking functionality to prevent cascading failures in a distributed system. It monitors the health and responsiveness of backend services and automatically stops sending requests if a service becomes unresponsive. This helps isolate failures and maintain system stability.

Authentication: Apache APISIX provides various authentication mechanisms, including JWT, Key Auth, OpenID Connect (OIDC), and Basic Auth. These mechanisms ensure secure access control to APIs by verifying client identities and authorizing their requests. Custom authentication plugins can also be developed to integrate with existing authentication systems.

Observability: Apache APISIX offers observability features to monitor and analyze the performance and behavior of the API gateway and backend services. It integrates with popular observability tools like Apache Skywalking, Prometheus, and Grafana, providing metrics, logs, and tracing capabilities for real-time monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.

Custom Plugin: Apache APISIX allows the development and deployment of custom plugins to extend its functionality. These plugins can be written in Lua or other supported languages to implement specific business logic or integrate with external systems. This flexibility enables customization and adaptability to meet unique requirements.

Easy-to-use Dashboard: Apache APISIX includes a built-in low-code Dashboard that provides a user-friendly interface for managing the API gateway. It simplifies the configuration of routes, plugins, upstreams, and other administrative tasks, making it accessible to developers with varying levels of expertise.

Ultimate Performance: Apache APISIX is designed for high performance and low latency. It utilizes advanced routing algorithms, such as radixtree-route-matching, to efficiently process and route incoming requests. The use of etcd for configuration storage ensures synchronization and fast retrieval of routing and plugin configurations.

Security: Apache APISIX provides multiple security plugins to protect APIs against malicious attacks. It supports features like CORS, JWT verification, Keycloak integration, and IP whitelisting/blacklisting. Security is prioritized to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of API communications.