We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and Layer7 API Management based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two API Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."We really like the runtime capabilities of IBM API Connect. The creation of products and the control of the monetization and hit rate are some of the features which we've found very valuable."
"In-built policies and security functions."
"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"The most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
"The solution offers a pretty good SLA."
"The management of the API and API portal is good."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"Layer7 API Management's availability on an on-premises deployment model, actually decreases the production time if its users have any issues at the server level."
"The latest version that just came out at the first of October really was a powerful move in the right direction. I was very, very pleased with that because it allows now beginning to use information of things. We've got this IOT infrastructure that we can plug into, and for my use cases there are a lot of outdoor sensors that provide valuable information to my customers."
"Key features include: lightweight mediation, transformation from JSON to XML and XML to JSON, API portal and API key management, the Developer Portal, and Circuit Breaker is a cool feature, too."
"It's pretty easy to use, and once we have templating set up we can add new APIs, at least through the gateway, and apply the security to them; it takes a minute."
"It is helpful to have a central API that is hosted and managed."
"Mobile app capabilities is good for building mobile apps to consume developed APIs. Also, the API Portal capabilities are very nice, up to and including the ability to do monetization. Security features are exhaustive, with several adapters to all leading identity suites."
"The solution fills our two most important concerns in seeking an API solution by providing a reliable gateway and security options."
"Some of the performance matrix that API Gateway gives off, we monitor them via SNMP traps, and then we tie them into our monitoring system. You can actually monitor some of the latencies and some of the performance aspects of both API Gateways, as well back end services. So having that line of sight surely helps in terms DevOps."
"The automation and the simplicity could be improved."
"Possible improvement is mainly around having more of the cloud oriented architecture bringing stability in adding new capabilities around security."
"Installation is weak."
"Different versions of the same thing can mean unnecessary duplication."
"The administration of the user interface and the technical documentation are areas of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome."
"It needs to be less taxing on compute resources."
"Some users say that the API lacks some features and is lagging behind the competition although that has not been my personal experience."
"I feel there is a lot to improve in terms of providing plug-and-play functionalities, as at the moment it requires a lot of coding in their specific language for implementing a medium-complexity use case."
"The interface should be improved."
"One of the features that the tool provides is the ability to simply onboard new APIs to an existing security platform. We build all the policies for security upfront, and then we can add those policies pretty simply and straightforwardly to any new API that gets developed in the enterprise."
"The overall cost of Layer7 API Management is high, they can improve it by making it less expensive."
"The solution should prioritize ease of use and align with the growing trend of cloud-native environments."
"The CA API Management solution has good security features, but when it comes to being used in areas like enterprise integration, where it is being used as middleware for all the IT environments, that particular feature is quite limited. It doesn't support as many protocols as an industry standard, competing product should."
"The delivery is bulky in terms of implementation. Its price could also be better. It is a very good product as compared to CA API, Google API, and WSO2 API, but its price is high. From the cloud-native perspective, some new features need to be added. It could also be made simpler to implement."
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while Layer7 API Management is ranked 10th in API Management with 110 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while Layer7 API Management is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of IBM API Connect writes "Good speed and performance, but it's based on a bit dated architecture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Layer7 API Management writes "Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding ". IBM API Connect is most compared with IBM DataPower Gateway, Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, whereas Layer7 API Management is most compared with Apigee, Kong Gateway Enterprise, Amazon API Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and IBM DataPower Gateway. See our IBM API Connect vs. Layer7 API Management report.
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We monitor all API Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
