Every vendor here calls itself a full-lifecycle API platform. What actually differs is whether the gateway is something you run yourself or only rent, whether the bill scales with API calls or with your org chart, and how much of the new 'AI gateway' feature is a working product versus a slide in the pricing deck.
Ownership also moves fast in this market - two of the oldest names on this list changed owners within the last two years - so we note who actually holds the product today, not just who built it.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What API management software does
API management software puts a gateway in front of the APIs a company exposes, so it can authenticate calls, enforce rate limits and policies, and monitor traffic, while giving internal or external developers a portal to discover and subscribe to what's available.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each API management tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Open-source gateway free; Core plan usage-based, Professional plan flat-rate with unlimited requests, prices not published; Enterprise quoted; 48-hour cloud trial
—
An API-first engineering team that wants open-source flexibility with a flat-rate ceiling on cost as traffic grows
A team that wants the widest possible ecosystem of pre-built plugins and integrations
Kong Gateway open source is free, self-hosted; Konnect Plus from $25 per month per control plane plus $200 per extra million requests, published; Enterprise quoted
—
A team already running services on Kubernetes that wants an open-source gateway with a paid path to a managed control plane
A small team without a platform engineer that just needs to publish one API this week
Community Edition free and open source (Apache 2.0), self-hosted; paid API Management from $2,500 per month (Planet, one production gateway) and Event Management from $1,250 per month, published; higher tiers quoted
Yes
A team that wants one predictable, flat monthly bill across API, event-stream and AI-agent gateways with unlimited users
A small team or startup that wants a managed, supported product without a four-figure monthly entry price
Source code open source (Apache 2.0), free to build and self-host without support; WSO2's own production binaries need a paid subscription; Bijira SaaS from $119 per month, published; Enterprise quoted
—
A team with real platform engineering capacity that wants API management, identity and integration from one open-source codebase it can self-host
A team that wants a polished, low-maintenance managed product out of the box
60-day evaluation at no cost; pay-as-you-go published (environments from $365 per month per region plus per-million-call charges); Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus subscriptions quoted
—
A company planning to sell or meter access to its APIs as a product, with deep analytics needs
A team not already on Google Cloud that just needs basic gateway functionality
Quoted per organisation; metered on API transactions with a 1M-per-month minimum, prices not published
—
A large, decentralised enterprise that needs federated API governance across many gateways, with an existing B2B/MFT relationship
A team wanting published pricing or a fast self-serve trial
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Ranked #1 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Tyk's Professional plan is one of the few in this category that charges a flat price regardless of request volume, with unlimited gateways, APIs and requests, which matters once traffic actually grows past the number a sales rep estimated. The number itself is not on the pricing page, so budgeting still starts with a sales call, and the self-serve trial of Tyk Cloud lasts only 48 hours.
It runs the same code base across cloud, hybrid and fully self-managed deployments, and its GraphQL support is genuinely strong compared with the rest of this list. It is a smaller company than Kong or the cloud vendors, so fewer third-party integrations and a thinner plugin marketplace are the trade-off.
What stands out
Open-source gateway
Flat-rate unlimited plan
Strong GraphQL support
Where it costs you
Smaller plugin marketplace than Kong's
Less third-party integration coverage than the cloud vendors
Right for
An API-first engineering team that wants open-source flexibility with a flat-rate ceiling on cost as traffic grows
Wrong for
A team that wants the widest possible ecosystem of pre-built plugins and integrations
United KingdomOpen-source gateway free; Core plan usage-based, Professional plan flat-rate with unlimited requests, prices not published; Enterprise quoted; 48-hour cloud trial
Full-lifecycle API platform with the strongest footprint in Latin America
Ranked #2 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestLatin America
Sensedia covers the full API lifecycle - design, gateway, portal, monetisation - and is one of the few vendors on this list with a genuinely strong reference base across Brazil and the rest of Latin America, backed by a Miami office for its US business.
Outside that region its brand recognition and partner and support network are thinner than Kong's, Apigee's or MuleSoft's, and pricing is quoted rather than published.
What stands out
Strong in Latin America
Full API lifecycle
Composable/API-led architecture
Where it costs you
Thinner brand recognition and partner network outside Latin America
Pricing is quoted, not published
Right for
A company operating in Brazil or the rest of Latin America that wants a full-lifecycle API platform with strong local support
Wrong for
A company operating mainly in North America, Europe or Asia with no Latin American presence
A SOA-era API platform now folded into Perforce's portfolio
Ranked #3 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
Akana traces back to SOA Software, was bought by Rogue Wave in 2016 and then by Perforce in 2019, and still does real work securing APIs in front of mainframe and legacy systems that newer, cloud-native gateways handle less comfortably.
It gets far less product marketing and community attention than Kong, Tyk or the cloud vendors, so a buyer should confirm current investment and roadmap directly with Perforce before standardising on it long-term.
What stands out
Perforce-owned
Legacy enterprise API management
Mainframe/legacy system support
Where it costs you
Far less product marketing and community activity than competitors
Worth confirming current investment level directly with Perforce
Right for
An enterprise with mainframe or legacy systems that needs API management in front of them and already trusts Perforce's portfolio
Wrong for
A buyer wanting a vendor with an active community, frequent releases and visible product momentum
United StatesQuoted per organisation; 30-day trial for qualifying businesses
The open-source gateway most engineering teams have already run
Ranked #4 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Open sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
Kong Gateway is the API gateway most engineering teams have already deployed somewhere in production, which makes Konnect an easy upsell: the same open-source core plus a managed control plane, developer portal and AI-traffic gateway. Konnect Plus starts at a published $25 a month plus usage with a 30-day trial and no card, which is a cheap way in.
The catch is that the bill then stacks per control plane, per million requests, per published API and per extra portal, which is hard to predict from the outside, and the governance and observability story assumes a platform team is already in place to run it.
What stands out
Open-source core
AI Gateway add-on
Konnect cloud control plane
Where it costs you
Konnect pricing gets hard to forecast past the entry Plus plan
Full value assumes a dedicated platform team
Right for
A team already running services on Kubernetes that wants an open-source gateway with a paid path to a managed control plane
Wrong for
A small team without a platform engineer that just needs to publish one API this week
United StatesKong Gateway open source is free, self-hosted; Konnect Plus from $25 per month per control plane plus $200 per extra million requests, published; Enterprise quoted
Flat per-gateway pricing with unlimited users and APIs
Ranked #5 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Free tierOpen sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
Gravitee sells API management, Kafka event management and AI-agent management as separate packages on one platform, each at a flat, published monthly price with unlimited users, APIs and calls, which is far easier to budget against than Kong's or Apigee's consumption pricing.
The free Apache 2.0 Community Edition lets a team self-host and try the gateway without a contract, but the paid entry point is $2,500 a month for one production gateway, aimed at a company that already knows it needs this. Its enterprise reference base is also smaller than vendors with a decade more track record.
What stands out
Unlimited users and APIs
Open-source Community Edition
No per-seat charge
Where it costs you
Paid plans start at $2,500 a month for one production gateway
Event and AI-agent management are priced as separate packages
Right for
A team that wants one predictable, flat monthly bill across API, event-stream and AI-agent gateways with unlimited users
Wrong for
A small team or startup that wants a managed, supported product without a four-figure monthly entry price
United StatesCommunity Edition free and open source (Apache 2.0), self-hosted; paid API Management from $2,500 per month (Planet, one production gateway) and Event Management from $1,250 per month, published; higher tiers quoted
Open-source API, integration and identity platform in one codebase
Ranked #6 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Open sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingElsewhere
WSO2 publishes the full API Manager source under Apache 2.0, and it bundles identity and integration capabilities most competitors sell as separate products. Read the licence carefully: the free route is an unsupported build from GitHub, while WSO2's packaged binaries come under the WSO2 Software License and need a paid subscription for commercial production use.
A hosted version, Bijira, starts at $119 a month. Running it well requires real platform expertise, the interface and docs are less refined than the venture-funded competitors, and the reported 2024 acquisition by EQT is a reason to check the current product roadmap before standardising on it long-term.
What stands out
Open source
API, identity and integration bundled
Self-hosted option
Where it costs you
Production use of WSO2's own binaries needs a paid subscription; licence-free means building from source
Interface and documentation less polished than venture-funded competitors
Right for
A team with real platform engineering capacity that wants API management, identity and integration from one open-source codebase it can self-host
Wrong for
A team that wants a polished, low-maintenance managed product out of the box
Sri LankaSource code open source (Apache 2.0), free to build and self-host without support; WSO2's own production binaries need a paid subscription; Bijira SaaS from $119 per month, published; Enterprise quoted
The API client everyone already has, now with a governance layer
Ranked #7 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Most developers already have Postman open for testing, and its API Catalog, Insights and governance features let a platform team see and grade every API in the company without forcing a tool switch on anyone. Those features sit in the quoted Enterprise plan, not the free or Team tiers, so the governance pitch is an enterprise purchase.
It is stronger at design, testing and cataloguing than at running a production gateway, so most buyers pair it with a dedicated gateway rather than replacing one, and per-user pricing adds up once a whole engineering org is seated on it.
What stands out
Huge existing install base
API governance and catalog
Design-to-test workflow
Where it costs you
Weaker as a production gateway than as a design/test tool
Catalog, Insights and governance are Enterprise-only, and per-user pricing adds up across an org
Right for
A platform team that wants API governance and a catalog layered on top of the API client developers already use daily
Wrong for
A team looking for a standalone production gateway to replace Kong, Azure or AWS
United StatesFree plan for one user; Solo $9 per month, Team $19 per user per month, published; Enterprise, where API Catalog, Insights and governance sit, quoted
The default choice for a team already committed to Azure
Ranked #8 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Self-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
For a team already running workloads on Azure, API Management drops in with native Entra ID auth, Key Vault, Monitor and now an AI-gateway layer for Foundry models, and the consumption tier lets a small team start cheap with published rates and the first million operations included.
That tier has no developer portal, though, and the self-hosted gateway for hybrid environments is only for production on the Premium tier, so the hybrid story costs real money. It pays off most inside Azure; an organisation split across clouds or heavy on-prem gets less of the integration benefit for the same learning curve.
What stands out
Consumption pricing tier
Deep Azure/Entra ID integration
Self-hosted gateway option
Where it costs you
Most of the integration payoff is Azure-specific
Self-hosted gateway is Premium-only for production; Consumption has no developer portal
Right for
A team already running workloads on Azure that wants native Entra ID, Key Vault and Monitor integration
Wrong for
A multi-cloud or on-prem-heavy organisation with no other Azure investment
United StatesConsumption tier pay-per-call with the first million operations included; Classic and v2 tiers billed per unit, published rates
Pay only for the calls you take, if you're already on AWS
Ranked #9 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
There is no cheaper way to expose a handful of Lambda functions as APIs than AWS API Gateway, and the published per-call pricing with a genuine free tier suits a startup or a single team testing an idea.
AWS has since added API Gateway Portals, a managed developer portal for discovering and documenting REST APIs, which closes part of the old gap; HTTP and WebSocket APIs are not covered. It is still a building block rather than a governance platform, so a company that needs cross-gateway governance or mature monetisation ends up bolting something else on top or moving to Apigee or Kong.
What stands out
True pay-per-use
Deep AWS/Lambda integration
REST, HTTP and WebSocket APIs
Where it costs you
Built-in developer portal (API Gateway Portals) covers REST APIs only
A building block, not a governance platform
Right for
A team already on AWS exposing Lambda functions or backend services as APIs, prioritising pay-per-use cost
Wrong for
A company that needs cross-gateway governance or a mature monetisation layer
United StatesPay-per-API-call and data transfer, published rates; free tier included for new accounts
The deepest analytics and monetisation layer of the cloud gateways
Ranked #10 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Apigee's traffic analytics, developer monetisation and API-product packaging go deeper than Azure's or AWS's native gateways, which is why it shows up in RFPs from companies planning to sell API access as a product. Pricing is more open than its reputation: pay-as-you-go rates are published, with environments from $365 a month per region plus per-million-call charges.
The features that justify Apigee, monetisation and hybrid deployment, sit in the quoted Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus subscriptions, and a team not already on GCP takes on a second cloud relationship just to run its gateway.
What stands out
API monetisation
Strong traffic analytics
Google Cloud integration
Where it costs you
Pay-as-you-go environment fees start before any traffic; monetisation needs a quoted subscription
Adds a second cloud relationship for teams not already on GCP
Right for
A company planning to sell or meter access to its APIs as a product, with deep analytics needs
Wrong for
A team not already on Google Cloud that just needs basic gateway functionality
United States60-day evaluation at no cost; pay-as-you-go published (environments from $365 per month per region plus per-million-call charges); Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus subscriptions quoted
Full integration platform for companies already committed to Salesforce
Ranked #11 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
MuleSoft answers a bigger question than integration: it manages APIs as products, with policies, versioning, a portal and a runtime you can deploy on your own Kubernetes. Organisations that need that governance get it.
Everyone else pays usage-based pricing, metered on flows, messages and data throughput, and specialist salaries to move records between two systems, which is why MuleSoft projects are the ones most often cited as costing several times their original estimate.
What stands out
Anypoint Platform
Owned by Salesforce
Enterprise integration plus API
Where it costs you
Usage-based pricing on flows, messages and throughput is hard to forecast and reputed to run high
Needs specialist developers on staff or on contract
Right for
Banks and large enterprises building reusable APIs under governance
Wrong for
Point-to-point integration between a handful of applications
United StatesQuoted per organisation (Salesforce enterprise licensing); usage-based on Mule flows, messages and data throughput
Enterprise API management, now sold inside IBM's integration SaaS bundle
Ranked #12 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestNorth America
API Connect's DataPower gateway is genuinely built for regulated, high-throughput enterprises, and IBM has added AI-assisted API authoring and MCP-compatible tooling on top.
It is now sold alongside the former Software AG webMethods under one IBM Integration SaaS umbrella, so a buyer evaluating either product should expect the two to converge, and overlap, over the next few years. It is priced and built for enterprise IT, not a five-person platform team.
What stands out
DataPower gateway
AI-assisted API authoring
Hybrid and on-prem deployment
Where it costs you
Now bundled with webMethods under one IBM umbrella, with unclear long-term overlap
Priced and built for enterprise IT, not a small platform team
Right for
A regulated, high-throughput enterprise that wants a DataPower-grade gateway with hybrid and on-prem deployment options
Wrong for
A five-person platform team or a company wanting a lightweight self-serve start
United StatesPay-as-you-go and annual Standard and Premium SaaS tiers on AWS with a 30-day trial; reserved instance and self-managed software quoted
Long-standing German integration platform, now sold by IBM as Integration SaaS
Ranked #13 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
webMethods was built by Software AG in Darmstadt and has real strength in B2B/EDI integration and legacy system connectivity that many enterprise buyers still run on. IBM bought it from Software AG, and the platform is now sold as IBM Integration SaaS (formerly IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration), from a published $2,565 a month in credits spread across API calls, flows, B2B and file transfer.
Inside it, API management means IBM API Connect, with the webMethods API Gateway offered as one of its gateways. A buyer should ask IBM directly which of the overlapping gateways it is actually investing in before committing to either.
What stands out
Now IBM-owned
B2B/EDI strength
Large legacy enterprise install base
Where it costs you
No longer an independent German vendor; roadmap now set by IBM
Direct overlap with IBM's own API Connect product
Right for
An enterprise with existing B2B/EDI integration on webMethods that wants to stay on it under its new IBM ownership
Wrong for
A buyer choosing between webMethods and IBM API Connect without first asking IBM which one it is investing in
GermanyIBM Integration SaaS Standard tier from $2,565 per month, published, with credits across API calls, flows, B2B and file transfer; 30-day trial
Makes sense mainly if you already run SAP Integration Suite
Ranked #14 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
SAP API Management is a component of SAP Integration Suite on Business Technology Platform, and it is genuinely convenient for exposing SAP S/4HANA and other SAP systems as governed APIs without leaving the SAP world.
It is not sold or priced as a standalone product, the documentation assumes an existing SAP admin, and a company without other SAP investment has little reason to pick it over a dedicated API vendor.
What stands out
SAP BTP integration
Bundled, not standalone
Enterprise-only
Where it costs you
Not sold or priced as a standalone product
Documentation assumes an existing SAP admin
Right for
A company already running SAP Integration Suite or S/4HANA that wants to expose SAP systems as governed APIs
Wrong for
A company with no other SAP investment looking for a standalone API management vendor
GermanySold as part of SAP Integration Suite on SAP BTP, quoted per organisation
API management sold in its own editions beside a broader integration (iPaaS) platform
Ranked #15 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
Boomi's customer-hosted runtime, the Atom in older documentation, running inside your own network is the reason it persists in manufacturing, healthcare and government where the database cannot be exposed. Two decades of enterprise deployments mean few surprises.
The cost model is the friction: editions are quoted and each carries an allowance of connections, so a new system can become a commercial conversation, and the tooling assumes a trained integration developer, so the platform is only as good as the person you hire to run it.
What stands out
iPaaS-first platform
API Management editions
Francisco Partners/TPG-owned
Where it costs you
Editions are quoted, with connections as an allowance inside each one
Interface and developer experience show their age
Right for
Hybrid estates with systems that will never be internet-facing
Wrong for
Small teams or business users building their own flows
Decades of B2B integration experience, with main offices in Paris and Arizona
Ranked #16 of 16 in Best API Management Tools in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
Axway is now a brand of 74Software, the listed French group formed by combining Axway and SBS with roots in Sopra, and runs main business offices in Paris La Defense and Scottsdale, Arizona, with decades of B2B and managed-file-transfer integration behind its Amplify API platform.
Amplify's federated governance across many gateways is a real strength for large, decentralised organisations. Its pricing page lists purchase metrics and monthly minimums but no prices, the product portfolio is broad enough to be confusing, and it is built for enterprise procurement cycles rather than a self-serve trial.
What stands out
Amplify platform
Federated API governance
Long enterprise track record
Where it costs you
Prices not published, only purchase metrics and minimums
Broad product portfolio can be confusing to navigate
Right for
A large, decentralised enterprise that needs federated API governance across many gateways, with an existing B2B/MFT relationship
Wrong for
A team wanting published pricing or a fast self-serve trial
FranceQuoted per organisation; metered on API transactions with a 1M-per-month minimum, prices not published
API management software puts a gateway in front of the APIs a company exposes, so it can authenticate calls, enforce rate limits and policies, and monitor traffic, while giving internal or external developers a portal to discover and subscribe to what's available. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
9 of the 16 tools here publish what they cost; the other 7 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Tyk, Kong, Gravitee.io, WSO2, Postman, Azure API Management, AWS API Gateway, Google Apigee, IBM webMethods (IBM Integration SaaS).
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 16 vendors are established in 6 countries across 4 regions (North America 10, Europe 4, Latin America 1, Elsewhere 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
3 of these are open source: Kong, Gravitee.io, WSO2. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
Self-hosted, managed, or both is the first fork in the road
Every product here draws its gateway either as software you run yourself (Kong Gateway, Tyk open source, WSO2, Gravitee Community Edition), a managed cloud service you rent (AWS, Azure, Apigee), or both depending on tier (Kong Konnect, Tyk Cloud, Gravitee).
Self-hosting keeps traffic and cost inside your own infrastructure but means your platform team owns upgrades, scaling and security patches. A managed service removes that operational load and bills for it instead, usually per call or per gateway. Neither choice is free; it just moves where the cost and the risk sit.
Ask who patches the gateway when a CVE lands: you, or the vendor.
Check whether the managed tier's regions match where your traffic actually originates.
Confirm the self-hosted edition gets the same security fixes as the cloud one, on the same day.
Pricing meters differ more than the feature lists do
Some vendors charge per API call (AWS, Azure consumption, Apigee pay-as-you-go), some a flat fee per gateway or plan regardless of volume (Gravitee, Tyk Professional), some per control plane plus usage (Kong Konnect), some per user seat (Postman), and most of the enterprise names simply quote a number after a sales call (MuleSoft, SAP, Axway, Boomi, Sensedia, Akana).
Steady, predictable traffic does well on a flat gateway fee; spiky or seasonal traffic does better on pay-per-call. Comparing a quoted enterprise price against a published per-call rate without modelling your own traffic is how budgets go wrong.
Model your own peak and average call volume before asking for a quote.
Ask what happens to the bill during a traffic spike, not just at steady state.
Get the enterprise vendor to quote against your real request volume, not a generic tier.
Ownership in this market is less stable than the product pages suggest
Several vendors on this page changed hands or structure recently: webMethods moved from Software AG to IBM and is now sold as IBM Integration SaaS, WSO2 was reportedly bought by EQT, Axway became a brand of 74Software after combining with SBS, and Akana passed through Rogue Wave to Perforce.
None of that is disclosed prominently on a pricing page, and a roadmap can quietly slow down or merge with a sibling product after an acquisition, as is now happening between IBM API Connect and webMethods. Before a multi-year contract, ask the vendor directly what changed since the last ownership transition.
Search the vendor's name plus "acquisition" before signing a multi-year contract.
Ask what happened to the product roadmap after the most recent ownership change.
If two products from the same new owner overlap, ask which one they are actually investing in.
A gateway is not a developer portal, and not all of them ship one
AWS API Gateway, and the raw cloud services generally, are strongest at routing and metering traffic and thinner on the self-service side: a catalog external developers can browse, sign up to, and get keys from without emailing someone. AWS now has API Gateway Portals, but only for REST APIs, and Azure's Consumption tier has no portal at all.
Kong, Tyk, Gravitee, Apigee and the enterprise suites all include a portal; a team planning to expose APIs to partners or the public needs to check that it exists on the tier it is buying and is customisable, not assume it comes free with the gateway.
Ask to see the actual developer portal, not just the admin console, in a demo.
Check whether external developers can self-serve API keys or need a human to approve every one.
If you need to expose APIs publicly, cross this requirement off the list before comparing price.
What goes wrong most often when buying API management software
Picking the cloud vendor you already use for compute without comparing its gateway against a dedicated one.
Signing an enterprise contract before modelling call volume against the pricing meter.
Assuming an acquired vendor's older docs and case studies still reflect its current roadmap.
Treating "API management" as a fixed budget line when a Gravitee- or Tyk-style flat fee scales completely differently from AWS's or Apigee's pay-per-call.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What is the best API management in 2026?
Tyk leads our ranking of 16. Tyk's Professional plan is one of the few in this category that charges a flat price regardless of request volume, with unlimited gateways, APIs and requests, which matters once traffic actually grows instead of staying near the sales estimate.
The price itself is not published, so you still need a sales call to learn it. It runs the same code base across cloud, hybrid and fully self-managed deployments, with genuinely strong GraphQL support. It's a smaller company than Kong or the cloud vendors, so the plugin marketplace and third-party integrations are thinner.
Which API management tools publish their pricing?
9 of the 16, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Tyk: Open-source gateway free; Core plan usage-based, Professional plan flat-rate with unlimited requests, prices not published; Enterprise quoted; 48-hour cloud trial.
Kong: Kong Gateway open source is free, self-hosted; Konnect Plus from $25 per month per control plane plus $200 per extra million requests, published; Enterprise quoted.
Gravitee.io: Community Edition free and open source (Apache 2.0), self-hosted; paid API Management from $2,500 per month (Planet, one production gateway) and Event Management from $1,250 per month, published; higher tiers quoted.
WSO2: Source code open source (Apache 2.0), free to build and self-host without support; WSO2's own production binaries need a paid subscription; Bijira SaaS from $119 per month, published; Enterprise quoted.
Postman: Free plan for one user; Solo $9 per month, Team $19 per user per month, published; Enterprise, where API Catalog, Insights and governance sit, quoted.
Azure API Management: Consumption tier pay-per-call with the first million operations included; Classic and v2 tiers billed per unit, published rates.
AWS API Gateway: Pay-per-API-call and data transfer, published rates; free tier included for new accounts.
Google Apigee: 60-day evaluation at no cost; pay-as-you-go published (environments from $365 per month per region plus per-million-call charges); Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus subscriptions quoted.
IBM webMethods (IBM Integration SaaS): IBM Integration SaaS Standard tier from $2,565 per month, published, with credits across API calls, flows, B2B and file transfer; 30-day trial.
The other 7 quote per organisation.
Is there a free API management tool?
Gravitee.io, Postman, AWS API Gateway offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these API management vendors established?
In 6 countries across 4 regions: North America 10, Europe 4, Latin America 1, Elsewhere 1.
Tyk: United Kingdom.
Sensedia: Brazil.
Akana: United States.
Kong: United States.
Gravitee.io: United States.
WSO2: Sri Lanka.
Postman: United States.
Azure API Management: United States.
AWS API Gateway: United States.
Google Apigee: United States.
MuleSoft: United States.
IBM API Connect: United States.
IBM webMethods (IBM Integration SaaS): Germany.
SAP API Management: Germany.
Boomi: United States.
Axway (74Software): France.
Which API management tools are open source?
Kong, Gravitee.io, WSO2.
Which API management tools can you host yourself?
Kong, Gravitee.io, WSO2, Azure API Management, IBM API Connect. The other 11 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Tyk?
Sensedia and Akana are the next two on this page.
Sensedia is for a company operating in Brazil or the rest of Latin America that wants a full-lifecycle API platform with strong local support; Akana is for an enterprise with mainframe or legacy systems that needs API management in front of them and already trusts Perforce's portfolio.
Who should not buy Tyk?
A team that wants the widest possible ecosystem of pre-built plugins and integrations. Smaller plugin marketplace than Kong's.
If your API management product belongs among these 16, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
