Azure API Management vs. SwaggerHub

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.

Incentivized

We use SwaggerHub to design API endpoint and documentation for our microservices architecture system. It's working really great for us to be able to collaborate more easily on developing API in our team. It also can test our API endpoint which makes an integration test easier when we deploy changes to the API, especially for non-developers/QA.

Incentivized

• Management of APIs
• Security of the API through Azure AD, AD B2C etc.
• Providing an outer layer through APIs

• Treating the design as documentation ensures that we have consistent and well defined APIs
• API consumers can export the swagger definition or code stubs to use within their development environment
• We can iterate through multiple versions of a definition privately before making a version publicly available

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Swagger Editor can be bit more user friendly by providing the means to persist different projects as part of user profiles
• Swagger UI's testing capability or means to test APIs can be improved
• Swagger UI clients can be added as part of Spring ecosystem

Incentivized

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

We have had SwaggerHub for as long as I have been with the company, so I am not sure why SwaggerHub was selected compared to other similar tools

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Faster API development lifecycle.
• Reduced discussion time when building a new vital API endpoint.
• Complete documentation which makes the new team member onboarding process easier.

Incentivized