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WSO2 API Manager

Score9.4 out of 10

16 Reviews and Ratings

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What is WSO2 API Manager?

WSO2 API Manager makes it possible for developers to both develop and manage APIs of different types. Unlike solutions which focus only on managing API proxies, WSO2 API Manager provides tools to develop APIs by integrating different systems as well. It supports a variety of API types from REST, SOAP, GraphQL, WebSockets, WebHooks, SSEs and gRPC APIs with specialized policies and governance for each different type.


Being fully open source, its architecture and extensibility makes it highly suitable for organizations to build unique solutions that cater to specific business needs.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features WSO2 API Manager has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 16 ratings of WSO2 API Manager's features
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Top Performing Features

  • API access control

    Authentication and authorization systems to ensure that users of the API have permission

    Category average: 8.3

  • Rate limits and usage policies

    Usage quotas to restrict traffic volumes to keep traffic loads manageable

    Category average: 7.8

  • API versioning

    There are mechanisms to roll out new versions of the API and the ability to migrate applications to new versions.

    Category average: 8.2

Areas for Improvement

  • API monitoring and logging

    Regular test cycles to check that APIs are operating as expected and log analysis providing deeper analysis on system usage

    Category average: 8.1

  • API usage data

    Analysis of traffic patterns to track how API is being used

    Category average: 8.3

  • API user onboarding

    Systems to allow users to sign up, receive access credentials and be assigned usage rights

    Category average: 8.3

Reviews

What users are saying about WSO2 API Manager.
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API Management and Transformation using WSO2.

Incentivized
Verified User
Professional in Research & Development (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

WSO2 API Manager is used to transform STL Product APIs into TMForum Compliant APIs. It is also used for TLS Termination, Authentication, and Rate Limiting purposes. All STL APIs are published to the external world via WSO2 API Manager only.

Pros

  • Authentication based on OAuth 2.0 and HTTP Basic Authentication.
  • Rate Limiting applied at different levels like Subscriber, API, Resource and Backend.
  • Monitoring by exporting the metrics in Prometheus and traces in Jaeger.
  • Mediation to perform transformation, orchestration etc.

Cons

  • reduce number of portals for configuration like admin, carbon etc.
  • improve certificate handling in case of Kubernetes based deployment.
  • provide out of the box dashboards for Grafana and Kibana.
  • provide more connectors out of the box.

Return on Investment

  • Saved almost 500 man-days effort in publishing the TMForum Compliant APIs via WSO2 API Manager compared to publishing the APIs by modifying the Product itself.
  • Saved training cost as the self paced training provided by WSO2 are sufficient.
  • Able to deliver the project in 30% less time as compared to normal project delivery timelines.

Other Software Used

Hazelcast, Apache Ignite, Istio

Quick time to market with a great cloud ready feature set

Incentivized
Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

WSO2 API Manager mainly helps me to expose my internal APIs to the outside world in a secure manner. Furthermore, it helps me with the API transformation as well (e.g., Rest to JSON)

Pros

  • API Security
  • API Transformation
  • API Monetization

Cons

  • Documentation
  • Support
  • Hybrid / SaaS offering

Return on Investment

  • Quick Time to market
  • Adaptable within developers resulting in lower training cost
  • Lower hardware footprint reducing the costs
  • Strong support for deploying on Cloud and Kubernetes providing CAPEX savings

Alternatives Considered

Kong Gateway Community (Open Source)

Other Software Used

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Azure Virtual Machines, Zoom, SentinelOne Singularity

Prepare to dig through countless config files with this product!

Incentivized
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Very easy to create API's: it has a very intuitive interface.
  • Overall (Subscriber and Store) everything looks clean and simple.
  • If you know how to, it provides you with all functionality that an API manager should provide. Like security, sandbox, API Console, swagger, mediation policies and much more.

Cons

  • Installation of this product is a hell. You need to be an expert to get this running together with WSO2 Analytics. It uses a really confusing method of "port + 1" to connect extra products. I guess this was meant to provide a handy way to add new WSO2 products. In reality you'll need to scroll through numerous config files to set this straight. If you use this out of the box, everything will work all right. But the moment you add SSL certificates, DNS names and you'll need special ports to configure your firewall, this product becomes unmaintainable.
  • The "Store" provides a nice way to group API's. However, the "Publisher" does not... if you have more than 30 API's searching for API's becomes really annoying.
  • The number of configs in this product is huge. As a developer myself, I've never seen (and definitely never created) a product that needed that much config files. Installation and maintenance of products should be stupidly simple, since no developer nor infrastructure person wants to learn something that "just" needs to be a tool.. opposed to being a whole new area of expertise. After using WSO2 API Manager for a while, we wanted to change the admin password... this should be simple enough, like just change the password in "Carbon." But nope. The whole WSO2 environment crashed. We just gave up. Too dangerous.
  • Why so many different "products"? Publisher, Store, Carbon, and numerous hidden interfaces. Analytics, ESB whatever... No wonder there are so many config files and port issues. Make it simple!!!

Return on Investment

  • We've moved away from legacy SOAP services where nobody knew what services was used by who. WSO2 eliminated at least 90% of time spend on any service.
  • Creating API's (or actually creating the API Management layer...) is so simple that new developers can get away with it in no time. Again, real time gainer.
  • Since creating API's is so simple, developers are very fast in adopting a kind of "Domain thinking". In comparison with Azure API Manager: Azure does not demand knowledge of "how" the product works, but it's definitely more difficult to get an API up and running in Azure. And for some reason, azure does not promote clean domain driven architecture. Domain Driven architecture is the greatest time saver strategy possible. And WSO2 fits nicely in there.

Other Software Used

OutSystems, Sitecore Experience Platform, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, Atlassian Confluence, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Graylog

WS02 API Manager review from a higher ed instistitution

Incentivized
Verified User
Project Manager in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • Nice API store-front capability
  • Management of users and permissions

Cons

  • Better QA testing prior to releases rollout
  • Better support needed

Return on Investment

  • Positive impact on continuity and API standardization.

Other Software Used

IBM API Management

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