Zuplo vs Apigee API Management

Key Differences Between Apigee and Zuplo#

When it comes to comparing Apigee and Zuplo, there are three critical areas to focus on. These areas include:

• Total cost of ownership
• Programmability and developer experience
• Developer portals and end-user experience

Below is a brief rundown of each area of focus.

Total Cost of Ownership#

Apigee, integrated into Google Cloud in 2016, has a complex pricing model. A fully managed Apigee setup with two environments, 100,000 API calls/month, and a single region costs over $3,000/month, with an additional $1,500/month for an extra region. The hybrid option, though cheaper, requires extensive work to deploy and manage.

In contrast, Zuplo offers a cost-effective solution that doesn't balloon your total cost of ownership as you scale your API traffic. Deploying an enterprise-grade API with features like API key authentication and rate limiting is available on all tiers, even our free tier. Zuplo's serverless architecture supports billions of requests/month, saving customers 80% compared to Apigee.

Programmability and Developer Experience#

Apigee's use of XML syntax for custom policies and a UI-based configuration can hinder developer experience. It lacks source control for gateway logic, code review for changes, and repeatability for deployments.

Zuplo's comprehensive API management solution integrates seamlessly with developer tools and your developer's existing skillset. This includes using familiar technologies such as JSON for routes, TypeScript for policies, and Markdown for documentation. It supports GitOps workflows, making the entire API lifecycle declarative and automated. Each new Git branch becomes a fully-fledged developer environment in seconds, enhancing collaboration. Zuplo delivers a full lifecycle API management experience that developers love.

Developer Portal and End User Experience#

Apigee's developer portal setup, primarily through a Drupal-based CMS or a DIY solution, is cumbersome and disconnected from IDEs and Git providers. This results in an outdated portal with manual authorization steps for API keys that is difficult to scale.

Zuplo automates the creation of developer portals from OpenAPI specifications, ensuring a streamlined onboarding experience to help with API adoption. The portals update instantly with new routes or policies developers add, without any environment-specific limits. Zuplo's modern design includes preconfigured self-service API key management and real-time analytics capabilities.

In summary, Zuplo excels in these three core areas:

• Cost: Zuplo is significantly cheaper and simpler.
• Developer Experience: Zuplo offers better integration with modern tools and workflows.
• Developer Portal: Zuplo provides a more streamlined, automatic, and user-friendly portal experience

Still Considering Apigee? Try Out Zuplo Instead!#

Apigee remains a popular choice for organizations invested in the Google ecosystem. Unfortunately, it remains a legacy-centric API management platform with only a few new features to support API developers in an API-first era. Apigee's total cost of ownership makes it incompatible with teams without massive operations teams and budgets, and its developer experience falls behind in supporting today's local-first development workflows and Stripe-quality developer portals.

As an alternative to Apigee, Zuplo redefines API lifecycle management to help you build consistent, secure, and resilient APIs using the tools you already love.