Hey everyone! I'm pretty new to the Azure ecosystem and we're thinking about setting up an API gateway to manage traffic to our services. Based on what I've seen, the APIM Standard seems a bit pricey for what we need. I'm on the lookout for a more cost-effective solution that we can host on Azure, ideally one that can integrate with Entra. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
3 Answers
If APIM Standard seems too robust for your needs, you have several budget-friendly options:
- **Azure Application Gateway** with WAF rules can be a great alternative; it handles routing and SSL termination with some security.
- **Azure Front Door** is good for global load balancing and basic security features, providing good scalability.
- For self-hosted solutions, consider **NGINX, Kong,** or **Ocelot**; they are much cheaper but come with the responsibility of managing your own operations.
- Regarding Entra integration, combine **App Gateway with Azure AD App Proxy** or implement direct OAuth flows if full policy management isn't necessary. Remember, APIM is best if you need features like rate limiting or monetization—if it’s just about traffic management and authorization, App Gateway or NGINX could save you a lot of money!
I've had good experiences with YARP! It's lightweight and really easy to set up. I run it behind an application gateway, keeping my backend APIs internal. It scales super well and is quite budget-friendly too!
If you're mainly after traffic visibility, have you thought about using Azure Log Analytics? You can log all your traffic there and analyze it without needing a full API gateway. Application Insights gives you a good view of requests to different endpoints too, which can help with your analysis.
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