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Exploring 20 Open-Source API Management Tools for Tech Stack Expansion

Developers are finding assistance from API management platforms in devising applications tailored to meet various customer requirements.

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Expanding Tech Stack with 20 Open-Source API Management Platforms
Expanding Tech Stack with 20 Open-Source API Management Platforms

Exploring 20 Open-Source API Management Tools for Tech Stack Expansion

In today's digital landscape, API management has become a crucial aspect for businesses aiming to stay competitive and adaptable. Here, we explore some of the leading API management tools and best practices for 2021 and beyond.

API management tools offer a variety of features to help organisations build, manage, and scale their API ecosystems. Let's take a look at some popular options:

  1. Azure API Management: Offering end-to-end API management in cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments, Azure API Management comes equipped with features like monetization, the ability to import WSDL of SOAP services, and more.
  2. APIman.io (by Red Hat): An open-source API management platform, APIman.io provides features such as Quick Runtimes, Policy-based governance with a detachable policy engine, Asynchronous capability, Enhanced billing and analytics options, and more.
  3. SwaggerHub: Known for its robust and intuitive editor, SwaggerHub offers an open-source API management solution with smart error feedback, syntax autocompletion, and multiple style validators.
  4. 3Scale (owned by Red Hat): This API management tool offers a distributed cloud layer for centralizing API program control, scalability, OpenShift Integration, and a wide range of encryption, authentication, and authorization protocols.
  5. Gloo Edge: A cloud-native API gateway, Gloo Edge supports legacy apps, microservices, and serverless, and integrates with your environment, allowing you to choose your favorite tools for scheduling, persistence, and security.
  6. KrakenD: An open-source API Gateway, KrakenD creates an API that acts as an aggregator of many microservices into single endpoints, doing the heavy-lifting automatically for you.
  7. API Umbrella: This open-source API management platform enables multiple organisations to operate under the same umbrella, offering features like Rate limiting, API keys, caching, real-time analytics, and an admin web interface.
  8. Kong Enterprise: An open-source microservice API tool, Kong Enterprise offers features like availability of open-source plugins, ease of One-Click operations, Common Language Infrastructure Capability, great Visualization for Monitoring, regular software Health Checks, introspection of OAuth2.0, and wider community support.
  9. Fusio: This open-source API management tool lets developers create and maintain REST APIs from different data types, offering features like a backend dashboard for admin control, detailed documentation, JSON validation for incoming requests, and scope handling to meet user permissions.
  10. Mashery: An API management tool that delivers market-leading full lifecycle API management capabilities for enterprises adopting cloud-native development and deployment practices.
  11. API Axle: Open-source, simple, and lightweight, API Axle provides development agencies with features like real-time analytics, robust Authentication, Logging of API traffic for statistics and reporting, Ease of creating and managing API keys, and Support for REST API design and use of Go, PHP, and Node.js libraries.
  12. Repose: An open-source RESTful middleware platform, Repose offers API processing facilities such as authentication, API validation, rate limiting, and HTTP Request logging.
  13. IBM Bluemix API: This API management tool offers features like the ability to use more than 200 software and middleware patterns to build portable and compatible apps for the hybrid cloud.

Best practices for API development and management in 2021 and beyond emphasise API security, governance, an API-first design approach, and holistic lifecycle management to ensure agility, resiliency, and strategic value. Key best practices include:

  • API Governance and Security: Establish policies and standards around authentication, authorization, rate limiting, data privacy, and error handling to secure APIs and ensure consistent usage. Implement API gateways and management platforms to enforce these policies, perform logging and auditing, and detect anomalies early. A "shift-left" approach to security, integrating vulnerability detection early in development, helps address risks proactively.
  • Adopt API-First Design: Design APIs as core elements of the architecture from the start, enabling modular, composable systems that facilitate rapid iteration, phased upgrades, and smooth integration with third-party services. This supports digital transformation by improving system agility, resiliency, and customer experience across channels.
  • Use Comprehensive API Management Tools: Employ API management platforms that cover the entire lifecycle—design, documentation, publishing, analytics, monetization—to shift from ad-hoc to strategic API ecosystems. Developer portals and analytics promote broader adoption and continuous improvement, driving innovation and social impact.
  • Lifecycle and Strategic Alignment: Manage APIs holistically across their lifecycle with cross-functional governance involving R&D, compliance, tech, legal, and business teams. Integrated lifecycle planning maximizes the value of API assets and aligns technological decisions with operational and regulatory requirements.
  • Token-based Security Practices: Utilize standard protocols like OAuth 2.0 with robust token lifecycle management, minimal scopes, token revocation, key rotation, and anomaly detection to secure access without sacrificing flexibility. Emerging techniques such as privacy-preserving authentication and machine learning for threat detection are increasingly important.

Together, these best practices enable organisations to build secure, scalable, and adaptable API ecosystems that meet evolving business needs and security challenges beyond 2021.

[1] [4] References omitted for brevity. If you require further details or frameworks for implementing these practices, please let me know.

Additional API management tools:

  • Gravitee.io: An open-source API management platform offering out-of-the-box features such as Rate limiting, IP filtering, Cross-origin resource sharing, plug-and-play options, open source API developer portal with OAuth2 and JSON web tokens policies, load balancing, and the ability to build fine-grained reports to comprehend the usage data of APIs.
  • DreamFactory API Management platform: A popular open-source tool that enables developers to integrate any SQL/NoSQL database, external HTTP/SOAP service, or file storage system into DreamFactory environment, and get a comprehensive, flexible, fully documented, and ready-to-use REST API automatically.
  • Apigility: An open-source API management framework encouraging established mobile app development companies to create and exhibit JSON representations for their codes. It offers features like different versioning options, along with an ease of authentication with OAuth2 and documentation to embrace the API Blueprint.
  • WSO2 API Manager: A full lifecycle API management platform that can run anywhere and anytime, offering features like higher customization, ease of governing policies, the possibility of Designing and Prototyping for SOAP or RESTful APIs, better access control and monetization facilities, etc.
  • Akana: An open-source API management platform offering features like threat protection, microservices management and DevOps, traffic management, application security, and open-source support.
  • SnapLogic: An Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) tool that is fast, multi-point, scalable, and flexible, with a scalable architecture and innovative data flow solutions.
  • Tyk.io: An open-source API gateway written in the Go programming language, offering features like an open source API developer portal, a detailed documentation, dashboard for API analytics, rate limiting for APIs, authentication, and various other specifications that help organisations focus on microservices environments and containerization.
  1. To fortify mobile app development projects, consider employing an API management tool like SwaggerHub, which provides a robust editor and smart error feedback to help developers create secure APIs.
  2. Technology advancements in API management have made platform offerings like Azure API Management valuable, enabling mobile app developers to monetize their APIs, import WSDL of SOAP services, and create end-to-end API ecosystems.

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