API Gateway (Endpoints)

API management & gateways — Azure · AWS · GCP

Concept

API Gateways provide authentication, rate limiting, request transformation, and monitoring for backend services. Each cloud offers managed API management platforms.

API Gateway

Azure API Management (APIM)

Amazon API Gateway

API Gateway (Apigee / Cloud Endpoints)

Tiers

Developer / Basic / Standard / Premium

HTTP / REST / WebSocket

Cloud Endpoints (lightweight) / Apigee (enterprise)

Auth

OAuth2, JWT, API Keys, Certificates

IAM, Cognito, Lambda Authorizer, API Keys

API Keys, Firebase Auth, IAP, JWT

Rate Limiting

Per-key / per-IP / per-product

Usage Plans + API Keys per method

Quotas per consumer

Request Transform

Policies (XML-based)

Mapping Templates (VTL)

OpenAPI spec transformation

Monitoring

Azure Monitor + Application Insights

CloudWatch + X-Ray

Cloud Monitoring + Cloud Trace

GCP Cloud Endpoints (OpenAPI)

# openapi.yaml
swagger: "2.0"
info:
  title: Payments API
  version: 1.0.0
host: payments-api.endpoints.PROJECT.cloud.goog
x-google-endpoints:
- name: payments-api.endpoints.PROJECT.cloud.goog
  target: "35.227.xxx.xxx"
paths:
  /v1/payments:
    get:
      summary: List payments
      operationId: listPayments
      security:
      - api_key: []
      x-google-quota:
        metric: read-requests
        limit: 1000/minute

○ Azure — Azure APIM

Policies: XML-based inbound/outbound/on-error. OAuth2, rate limiting, caching, request/response transformation.

CLI: az apim create -g prod-rg -n my-apim --publisher-email admin@me.com --publisher-name MyOrg

○ AWS — AWS API Gateway

Stages: dev/staging/prod. Usage plans, API keys, VTL mapping templates, Lambda/HTTP integrations.

CLI: aws apigateway create-rest-api --name PaymentsAPI

○ GCP — GCP Cloud Endpoints

Spec: OpenAPI 2.0 YAML. Deployed to Cloud Run / GKE. API keys, JWT validation, quotas, and monitoring.