You’re searching for the best API gateway software for your team. What should you look for?

1 Your use case and requirements

The first thing you need to do is to define your use case and requirements for your API gateway. What kind of APIs are you exposing? How many requests per second do you expect? What level of security and reliability do you need? How complex is your business logic and data transformation? How much control and flexibility do you want over your API gateway configuration and deployment? These questions will help you narrow down your options and prioritize your features.

2 Your architecture and technology stack

The next thing you need to consider is your architecture and technology stack. How do you design and develop your backend services? Are they monolithic or microservices? Are they running on-premises or in the cloud? What programming languages and frameworks do you use? How do you manage your API documentation and testing? These factors will affect your compatibility and integration with different API gateway software. You should look for an API gateway that supports your existing tools and workflows, or that can easily adapt to them.

3 Your budget and resources

The third thing you need to factor in is your budget and resources. How much are you willing to spend on your API gateway software? How much time and effort are you willing to invest in learning and maintaining it? How much support and documentation are available for it? There are different types of API gateway software, ranging from open-source to commercial, from self-hosted to managed, from low-code to code-based. You should weigh the pros and cons of each option and find the best balance between cost and value for your team.

4 Your scalability and performance

The fourth thing you need to evaluate is your scalability and performance. How do you plan to grow and scale your APIs in the future? How do you ensure that your API gateway can handle the increasing load and complexity? How do you monitor and troubleshoot your API gateway performance and issues? You should look for an API gateway that can scale horizontally or vertically, that can handle high concurrency and low latency, that can provide metrics and logs, and that can offer resilience and fault tolerance.

5 Your security and compliance

The fifth thing you need to check is your security and compliance. How do you protect your APIs from unauthorized access and malicious attacks? How do you enforce policies and rules on your API requests and responses? How do you comply with the relevant regulations and standards in your industry and region? You should look for an API gateway that can offer authentication, authorization, encryption, throttling, CORS, logging, auditing, and other security features. You should also look for an API gateway that can support the protocols and formats that you need, such as REST, SOAP, GraphQL, JSON, XML, etc.

6 Your user experience and feedback

The sixth thing you need to consider is your user experience and feedback. How do you ensure that your APIs are easy to use and understand for your clients? How do you communicate and collaborate with your API consumers and stakeholders? How do you collect and analyze their feedback and suggestions? You should look for an API gateway that can provide a user-friendly interface, a comprehensive documentation, a sandbox environment, a versioning system, and a feedback mechanism. You should also look for an API gateway that can enable you to iterate and improve your APIs based on your user needs and expectations.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?