---
title: "Build vs Buy: API Management Tools"
description: "Should you build or buy your API management tool? This decision impacts cost, time to market, etc. Here, you'll learn why buying API management tools is better."
canonicalUrl: "https://zuplo.com/learning-center/build-vs-buy-api-management-tools"
pageType: "learning-center"
authors: "josh"
tags: "API Management, API Tooling"
image: "https://zuplo.com/og?text=Build%20vs%20Buy%3A%20API%20Management%20Tools"
---
Your decision to build or buy an API management tool directly impacts your
resource allocation, time to market, and API consumability. This article
explains why buying an API management tool is the best decision.

## Cost

It's no news that the global economy has been declining. More than ever,
companies seek ways to cut costs and utilize resources effectively. So, it may
seem like a no-brainer to build an in-house API management (APIM) tool instead
of paying for one because the assumption is that it will save costs. But is that
really the case? Let's break it down:

- **Complexity:** You'll need to staff a team of strong engineers, ops, and
  product folks to deliver basic in-house API Management tooling. API Gateways
  are complicated and a critical part of your infrastructure that can adversely
  impact the performance and reliability of your APIs if not built right.
- **Prioritization and opportunity cost:** Building will drain resources from
  other areas putting other essential projects on hold, having you spending time
  on infrastructure instead of focusing on what's core to your business and
  differentiation.
- **Maintenance:** The costs don't end at the software's development phase;
  you'd also have to continuously maintain the API management tool to ensure
  it's bug-free, compliant, and up-to-date. Additionally, outages could cost
  your company revenue and erode customer trust.
- **High upfront investment**: You need to consider the infrastructure and
  operation costs, such as hosting, training, salaries, tools, and even hiring
  new employees. This investment may not be feasible for some organizations,
  especially smaller teams or those with limited budgets.
- **Inaccurate budgeting estimates:** Studies reveal that
  [35% of project failures stem from budget issues](https://www.runn.io/blog/why-do-projects-go-over-budget).
  Inaccurate estimates for building the APIM may lead to a budget overrun or
  incomplete product, hindering API rollout.

### Why buy, not build?

- **Save engineering time:** Your team will have more time to improve your API
  and build other essential company products while your APIs remain securely
  shipped and consumable by users.
- **Predictable expenses:** Your cost structure will be more transparent and
  predictable, so you'll no longer deal with inaccurate budgeting estimates.
- **Save money and start fast:** Save money on development, testing, and
  maintenance by paying a subscription fee and immediately getting access to a
  fully functional API management tool.
- **Batteries-included:** The features you need will already be built in, and
  because the vendor competes with others, they will continue to add new
  features over time, which would benefit you and your users.

## Time to market

Before deciding whether or not to build vs buy, you need to consider how fast
you want to ship your APIs to the end users and which of these approaches will
help you achieve that goal. For instance, if you decide to build in-house, you
need to ask yourself these questions:

- How long would it take your team to build an API management tool?
- Do you have the workforce to build it? If yes, are they equipped with the
  necessary skills? If not, how long will it take to train or hire? Companies we
  talk to have found that building an in-house APIM product usually needs six
  full-time engineers for over six months, often resulting in scope cuts or no
  launch.
- API demand is at an all-time high, with calls representing
  [83% of global web traffic](https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/state-of-the-internet-security-retail-attacks-and-api-traffic)
  and
  [over 90% of developers utilizing them](https://nordicapis.com/20-impressive-api-economy-statistics/#:~:text=Over%2090%25%20Of%20Developers%20Use,69%25%20use%20third%2Dparty%20APIs).
  Are you willing to risk months of delay spent building and potentially missing
  business opportunities for your API?

### Why buy, not build?

- You get a faster time to market, which enables you to engage with developers
  and stakeholders sooner, gaining a competitive edge. For instance, startups
  that use [Zuplo](https://zuplo.com/docs/articles/who-uses-and-why) have gone
  live in 2 hours, and large enterprises in less than a month.
- You get everything you need to ship APIs you are proud of from day one in
  record time.
- You won't be swallowed up by the ever-expanding scope of building an API
  management tool, and you'll be able to focus on building what matters instead
  of reinventing the wheel.

## Quality and features

When building an API management platform, you'll face the trilemma of finding a
balance or compromising on cost, time, or scope. Adjusting any of these will
affect the cost, time to market, and product quality.

### Why buy, not build?

- **Building API Management isn't easy:** Crafting a top-notch API management
  tool is no small feat. It demands significant resources, time, and deep
  expertise in networking and protocols. Even with ample resources, the
  development spans months to a year. Notably, even vendors have large dedicated
  teams building them.
- **Aligned incentives:** By buying, you will totally reverse the compromise you
  would have made on the quality of your in-house APIM platform to meet
  deadlines, budget restraints, skills shortages, scope creep, etc. Now, you are
  using a tool with a dedicated company whose primary focus is creating the best
  developer experience for you and your users.
- **Vast features:** A paid API management tool has many features that will
  likely have a higher standard than you can build yourself. Upon payment, you
  immediately access authentication, access control, analytics, documentation, a
  test console for rapid API testing, etc.

## Customization

Gone are the days when, if you wanted a fully customized product, you had to
build it yourself. These days, you'll find pre-built tools with customization
options that meet your needs and even have extra functionalities you didn't
consider.

API management tools in the market (like Zuplo) are very programmable and
extensible, giving you several customization options to meet your needs and
those of your users. These products are built not to make you feel locked into
the vendor's way of thinking but to give you the freedom to do what you want.

Another great thing is that you can try them first and decide whether you like
them before fully committing to them. So, if one doesn't meet your customization
needs, provide the right level of governance for your application programming
interfaces, have a fast development feedback loop, etc., you can opt out and try
another one.

## Why Zuplo?

So, we've convinced you to focus on what matters and buy. Great, so why Zuplo?

- **Reduced cost:** Yes, buying an API management tool saves you costs when
  compared to building one, but most API management tools are still relatively
  expensive. Zuplo has enabled dev teams to save over 70% on the sticker price
  of products like Apigee and Kong while also providing a fully managed solution
  that includes hosting costs and eliminates the need to manage Kubernetes
  clusters and scaling. We are the most affordable API management tool in the
  market today.

  <Testimonial
    text="The move to Zuplo from our existing API management vendor was easy, taking just over two months to switch mission-critical systems, and we're saving over 70% on costs. What's more, our engineers absolutely love working with Zuplo, and we find it a much easier product to maintain and operate."
    customer="ryanBlockdaemon"
  />

- **Ship to production faster:** At Zuplo, we are obsessed with performance. We
  optimized our API management tool to speed up everything, from API development
  to deployment to the API's E2E performance. That way, you can move from
  development to production in minutes.

  <Testimonial
    text="Since moving from Azure API management to Zuplo, we've experienced a much quicker path from development to production. Zuplo's built-in policies, route editing, custom code, and GitHub version control make surfacing our backend APIs to the world a breeze"
    customer="reeceIticket"
  />

- **Everything you need for your API in one place:** When you use Zuplo, you get
  authentication that your customers love, never-outdated API documentation, a
  developer portal where users can test your APIs, and rate limiting that works
  your way. Zuplo provides security, built-in analytics, easy monetization
  set-up, a gitops workflow, and support for near-unlimited deployments.

  <Testimonial
    text="Zuplo is the ultimate one-stop shop for all your API needs. With rate limiting, API key management, and documentation hosting, it saved us weeks of engineering time. It lets us focus on solving problems unique to our mission"
    customer="tomRewiringAmerica"
  />

- **Vast customization options:** Zuplo is the only programmable API management
  tool that lets developers use their superpower - writing code. Do you want to
  tweak our existing policies? You can write code to implement logic choices in
  the gateway without dealing with the confusing XML workflow language. Do you
  want to change the look and feel of your developer portal? You can update the
  code for that. The customization opportunities on Zuplo are endless.

  <Testimonial
    text="We have customers in every corner of the world and wanted true Edge performance. Zuplo, combined with their customizability, over-delivered on both."
    customer="rexDynasend"
  />

## Summary

Buying an API management solution wins the build vs buy debate because the
benefits outweigh building your own. It allows you to ship your API securely to
end users faster and has more cutting-edge features with room for customization.

Zuplo is re-inventing API management with an edge-deployed, multi-cloud gateway
that deploys to 300 data centers worldwide in under 10 seconds. It is SOC2 Type
II certified and powers billions of API requests for large enterprises and
startups alike—from publicly traded insurance tech to the most prominent crypto
APIs in the world.

Are you ready to ship quality APIs faster?
[Try Zuplo today](https://portal.zuplo.com/signup?utm_source=website&utm_campaign=buildvsbuy&utm_content=try_zuplo_today)
and save time, money, and engineering effort.