API management tools vs API management platforms
A significant part of your API management strategy is wisely choosing your technology stack. The market is full of solutions, from small tools to large platforms, that simplify API development and maintenance. Let’s figure out what the main differences are between the two main types of API management software and which you should choose.
There’s a wide variety of API management tools and platforms for any type of business:
Each API management tool has its own unique feature set, but such tools typically offer a combination of these functionalities:
- Documentation tools
- Security tools
- Sandbox environments
- Backwards compatibility
- API connection automation
- Version control
- Traffic monitoring
- Memory management and caching
- Load balancing and fault tolerance
You can build tools on your own if you want to keep all your data and be responsible for its safety. But many organizations go for third-party solutions they can purchase as a service and choose the best API management software for their goals.
Some organizations manage to create their own ecosystems of API management tools, cherry-picking the features they need from existing tools. If you feel that stitching together different tools will make your work process too complicated, you should consider moving to an enterprise API management platform.
An API management platform usually combines everything enterprise software might need and offers a standardized process for creating, managing, and deploying APIs. This helps you organize your API management processes.
An API management platform also acts like a proxy and protects your backend services from downtime due to excessive requests from customers, partners, or internal users.
One of the best parts of API management platforms is analytics, which is usually included in the feature set. Analytics allows you to see who uses your APIs and how, and this knowledge makes it easier to manage your developer community, plan further development, and improve your interfaces based on data.
Platforms also usually have developer portals that make it easy to distribute and acquire APIs.
Read the full article at the Apriorit blog and explore the most popular API management platforms you can use to organize and improve your application programming interfaces.
