14 Open Source and Managed API Gateway for Modern
Applications
1. Kong Gateway
Kong Gateway is the most popular open-source cloud-native API gateway built on
top of a lightweight proxy. It is written in Lua running with the help of Nginx. It is a
template engine that helps to accelerate the event time. It guarantees to deliver
unparalleled latency performance and scalability for all our microservice
applications regardless of where they run.
Companies like Nasdaq, Honeywell, Cisco, FAB, Expedia, Samsung,
Siemens, and Yahoo Japan extensively use the Kong API gateway.
Some of the features offered by Kong are:
• Authentication
• Traffic Control
• Analytics
• Transformations
• Logging
• Serverless
• Extendable using Plugin architecture
Kong got very good documentation and integration.
You can run Kong on your preferred cloud platform.
2. Apache APISIX
Apache APISIX was initially born at China’s ZhiLiu technology and at a later stage, it
entered the apache incubator and made open-source. The vice president of the
project, Ming Wen, states that this API gateway solves various challenges brought
by cloud-native & microservices.
Apache ApiSix is being used by companies like 360, HelloTalk, NetEase,
TravelSky, and many more.
Apache APISIX is based on Nginx and etcd, and it has dynamic routing and plug-in
hot loading, which is especially suitable for API management under the
microservice system.
3. Tyk
Tyk is an enterprise-ready open-source API gateway. You have an option to either
go for self-hosted or managed.
The following are some of the out-of-the-box features offered by TYK.
• Authentication
• Quotas & Rate Limiting
• Version Control
• Notifications and Events
• Mock out APIs
• Detailed Monitoring and Analytics
• Committed to backward compatibility
• GraphQL Out of the Box
TYK is also available on the AWS marketplace. A good choice if your application
stack is on AWS.
4. Ocelot
Ocelot is a .NET API gateway.
This project aims to use .NET, running microservices or service-oriented
architecture that needs a unified point of entry into their system. However, it will
work with anything that speaks HTTP and run on any platform that ASP.NET Core
supports.
Ocelot act as middleware in a specific order. It manipulates the HttpRequest object
into a state specified by its configuration until it reaches a request builder
middleware. It creates a HttpRequestMessage object, which is used to request a
downstream service. The middleware that makes the request is the last thing in the
Ocelot pipeline. It does not call the next middleware. A middleware piece maps the
HttpResponseMessage onto the HttpResponse object and is returned to the client.
Ocelot offers standard features such as routing, authentication, rate limiting,
caching, load balancing, and more. It does not provide support for Chunked
Encoding, Forwarding a host header, and Swagger.
5. Goku
Goku API Gateway is an umbrella project of EOLINK Inc. It is a Golang-based
microservice gateway that enables high-performance dynamic routing, service
orchestration, multi-tenancy management, API access control, etc.
Goku provides a graphic interface and a plug-in system to make configuration
easier and expand more conveniently. Apart from standard features, Goku offers
clustering, hot updates, alerting, logging, etc.
6. Express Gateway
Express Gateway is built on Express.js. Express Gateway is a bunch of components
that declaratively build around Express to meet the API Gateway use case. Express
Gateway’s power is harnessed the rich ecosystem around Express middleware.
Companies like Joyent, The Linux Foundation, VIRICITI, Switch Media,
Coozy, and Musement are using Express gateway extensively.
It is simple, fast, and offers all the basic features.
7. Gloo
Gloo is a next-generation fully featured API gateway and Ingress Controller for
cloud-native environments. It is built on Envoy Proxy to connect, secure, and
control traffic across your application services.
Gloo supports connecting to a wide range of workloads to secure and manage that,
and it is exceptional in its functional level routing. It is available as open-source and
enterprise both. The enterprise version offers the following:
• Developer portal
• WAF
• Data loss prevention
• More way to authenticate
• Advanced rate limiting and multi-cluster management
8. KrakenD
KrakenD is an ultra-high performance open-source API Gateway. Its core
functionality is to create an API that acts as an aggregator of many microservices
into single endpoints, doing the heavy-lifting automatically for you: aggregate,
transform, filter, decode, throttle, auth, and more.
It offers a declarative way to create the endpoints. It is well structured and layered
and open to extending its functionality using plug-and-play middleware developed
by the community or in-house.
KrakenD claims to be faster than Kong and Tyk. Check out the benchmarking
results.
9. Fusio
Fusio is an API-Management system because it helps develop actual API endpoints
(i.e., request and transform data from a database). It is not limited to proxy
requests to another API. It provides a simple and intuitive backend to control and
manage your API.
Some of the features offered by Fusio are:
• Monetization
• Subscription support
• Generate OAI, RAML schema specification
• Documentation
and other standard API gateway features.
10. WSO2
WSO2 is a full lifecycle API Management solution that can be run anywhere. It can
be deployed on-prem, cloud, or in a hybrid fashion where its components can be
distributed and deployed across multiple cloud and on-prem infrastructures.
It comprises a cloud-native API gateway and provides a Kubernetes operator to
convert raw microservices into managed APIs easily. API Manager integrates
with service meshes and provides a full-fledged management plane and control
plane for managing, monitoring, and monetizing APIs and API products.
It supports API publishing, lifecycle management, application development, access
control, rate limiting, and analytics in one cleanly integrated system.
Next, let’s explore the commercial platforms.
11. Apigee
Apigee is a cross-cloud API management platform by Google Cloud.
It comes in the following flavors:
• Apigee: a hosted SaaS solution where you pay for what you use. You focus
on building business and offload managing Apigee environment to GCP.
• Apigee hybrid: let you manage APIs on-premises, on Google Cloud Platform
(GCP), or a mix of both.
Apigee offers end-to-end API management, which comes with monetization and
inbuilt monitoring.
12. Cloud Endpoints
Another one by Google Cloud.
Endpoints is a lighter version of Apigee by Google Cloud. It is best suitable for
developers to develop, deploy, and manage APIs on any Google Cloud back end. It
provides tools and libraries for its clients from the App Engine application. It helps
to create and configure using Google Codelab. Codelab helps to run sample API
using App Engine in Java 8 and Maven 3.6.0.
Google Cloud Endpoints tightly integrate with other products like Trace and
Logging for monitoring, Auth0, and Firebase for authentication, GKE, and App
Engine for automated deployment, etc.
13. Amazon API Gateway
AWS may offer anything you need to run your applications.
So does API.
Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service that is made for developers to form
– > publish -> maintain and secure APIs easily at any scale. It supports both RESTful
and WebSocket APIs and allows us to enable real-time 2-way communication.
Below is the pictorial representation by Amazon, which illustrates how the Amazon
API gateway works.
If your Microservices or API is already hosted on AWS, then it makes sense to
integrate with Amazon API Gateway. They offer 1 million API calls under the FREE
tier, which is good for you to see how it works.
14. Azure
Why leave Azure behind?
Microsoft Azure offers end-to-end API management in cloud, on-premises, or
hybrid. You can manage the API management programmatically through REST API
and SDK.
Good news if you use SOAP. You can import the web services description language
(WSDL) of their SOAP service, and Azure will create a SOAP front-end. They offer all
the standard features, including monetization. Go ahead and give it a try to
experience the platform.
Source: Geekflare
Compiled by Team Transform Partner
