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Azure API Management

Azure API Management

Overview

What is Azure API Management?

Microsoft's Azure API Management supports creation of API.

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Recent Reviews

Easy APIM

8 out of 10
January 16, 2021
Incentivized
We use it for letting teams access synchronous services and microservices both for internal and external network users. It's extremely …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Consumption

0.042 per 10,000 calls

Cloud
Lightweight and serverless version of API Management service, billed per execution

Developer

$48.04

Cloud
per month Non-production use cases and evaluations

Basic

$147.17

Cloud
per month Entry-level production use cases

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://azure.microsoft.com/en…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $0.04 per 10,000 calls
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Product Demos

Extend your SAP applications and data to innovate on Azure | Azure Friday

YouTube

Azure API Management for serverless applications | Azure Friday

YouTube

Introduction to API Management on Microsoft Azure

YouTube

Azure API Management Core Concept - step by step tutorial for beginners

YouTube

Modernize your API stack with GraphQL and Azure API Management | Azure Friday

YouTube

Diagnose and solve problems with Azure API Management | Azure Friday

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Azure API Management?

Azure API Management Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft's Azure API Management supports creation of API.

Azure API Management starts at $0.042.

Reviewers rate API monitoring and logging highest, with a score of 9.8.

The most common users of Azure API Management are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(106)

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
August 13, 2023

Solid APIM Offering

Gordon Lo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
API Management is being used to externalize, modernize, and secure our API set. As part of our strategy to open up and integrate more with our clients and patients we chose to leverage API Management as our main gateway to health data and submission of orders. API management takes away a lot of the headaches associated with externalizing web services and API sets. Things like versioning, enabling both XML and JSON even though the back-end service is only XML, providing a developer portal and subscription keys... there is a lot more that makes this well worth the costs.
  • Developer portal - while a little rough around the edges, it works well and provides a tidy UI for externalizing your APIs. Developers can register themselves and request and manage subscriptions to products/APIs. The site is customizable too - though that process is a little cumbersome. The sign-up process even has customizable email templates for verification.
  • Flexible - there are a lot of customizations that are possible through the use of API policies. This could be transforming XML to JSON or vice versa, modifying headers, restricting parameters, redirecting to different end-points depending on the message body... the sky is the limit as to what you can do.
  • Management - the structure of how APIs are managed is well thought-out. It makes it quick to start standing up new APIs and versioning them. Additionally, the analytics provided are also very helpful in diagnosing possible bottlenecks or unusual usage.
  • 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.
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.
API Management (6)
91.66666666666666%
9.2
API access control
90%
9.0
Rate limits and usage policies
100%
10.0
API usage data
100%
10.0
API user onboarding
80%
8.0
API versioning
100%
10.0
API monitoring and logging
80%
8.0
  • + APIM has made management of various APIs across multiple LOBs easier and provides a common front-end for our 3rd party developers.
  • + APIM as a gateway for our APIs has made things more secure and provided more insight into API usage patterns.
  • - The cost of APIM is high, however with each additional API we add, we get more value.
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.


No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
We have an existing relationship with Microsoft. They are a very reputable company, and coupled with a solid product, using Azure APIM made the most amount of sense. The biggest detractor was price, however APIM is priced competitively with others in the market. It's hard to go wrong with a Microsoft product.
With the evaluation process, I may have expanded the scope to additional vendors. While we looked at the big players - Microsoft and Amazon - the complexity of APIM means that it requires a lot of time to evaluate each vendor. There simply wasn't enough time to evaluate a third option.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Actually most of the work in Projects these days are managed via the use of APIs. However the security and management of APIs is a key aspect which is being done through Azure API Management or shortly APIM. Mostly it is used across the organizational levels. Through Azure API Management, we have mostly integrated different kinds of APIs right from Agricultural based APIs to Banking and Finance data APIs.
  • Management of APIs
  • Security of the API through Azure AD, AD B2C etc.
  • Providing an outer layer through APIs
  • The rate-limit-by-key policy need to be properly adjusted to maximize the benefits
Wherever we want to maintain the security of the API and the ingredient data is very confidential, we must use this service. Also, if we would like to manage a large number of API at one go, we must use it. However, for few general APIs, we can avoid the Azure API Management use due to the overall cost strategy.
API Management (7)
80%
8.0
API access control
90%
9.0
Rate limits and usage policies
50%
5.0
API usage data
90%
9.0
API user onboarding
90%
9.0
API versioning
90%
9.0
Usage billing and payments
50%
5.0
API monitoring and logging
100%
10.0
  • We can always think of positive ROI impact on business
  • It helps to easily facilitate the design, deployment, and maintenance of our APIs
N/A
January 16, 2021

Easy APIM

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for letting teams access synchronous services and microservices both for internal and external network users. It's extremely simple to make an API available. We can build infrastructure and APIs using Terraform.
  • Easy commissioning of APIs.
  • Great policies to control access.
  • Easy mock services for testing.
  • We cannot automate the network infrastructure easily. At least we had issues with creating end to end APIM using Terraform.
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.
API Management (7)
68.57142857142857%
6.9
API access control
80%
8.0
Rate limits and usage policies
90%
9.0
API usage data
80%
8.0
API user onboarding
N/A
N/A
API versioning
80%
8.0
Usage billing and payments
70%
7.0
API monitoring and logging
80%
8.0
  • We have one-stop access to all services.
  • We can stop DDoS, Man in the middle attack, etc.
Apigee is by Google and seems to be promising. The cost seems high though. With Azure, we do not have to make any special purchases. CapEx vs OpEx! But, Apigee could be more environment independent compared to Azure APIM. The promise of speed by Apigee is also better compared to Kong on Azure APIM.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are lightly managing and pushing out a few APIs to internal customers using Azure API Management. We are exploring pushing them out to a few of our external partners, but have not done so yet. It is a small catalog of APIs we are managing, but they work well and are easier to keep track of with this tool. It helps keep our policies in order and therefore users know what to expect.
  • The policy management process is very good. Without solid policies, you run the risk of poor performance or miscommunications. We’ve been very successful with our API catalog as long as we maintain solid policies.
  • Along with the policies, the security is very easy to manage, and you can control things from a simple Azure dashboard, including groups and levels.
  • The seamless connection to Azure App Service and Service Fabric is a great bonus, as everything is kept within an easy to manage portal with a common look and feel.
  • 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.
If you are an Azure Cloud shop, or are moving in that direction, this is a great tool to start using. You can try with a few small APIs; we began with building some internal APIs that allow us to connect some of our SQL DBs to the Azure Maps service, and we had great luck and things have been running smoothly for six months now. We are expanding the use internally and looking to expand further to external partners as well.
API Management (7)
97.14285714285714%
9.7
API access control
100%
10.0
Rate limits and usage policies
100%
10.0
API usage data
100%
10.0
API user onboarding
100%
10.0
API versioning
100%
10.0
Usage billing and payments
80%
8.0
API monitoring and logging
100%
10.0
  • 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.
It’s a great tool, and so easy to seamlessly connect into your current Azure world that it’s hard not to look at it or even test the waters with it. It’s priced well, and is feature-rich enough to accomplish most tasks. I think the ease of having everything together and the ability to link so many different services under a subscription is the magic of Azure, and it’s hard not to make good use of that.
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