Apigee / API Gateway Complete Guide: API Management, OAuth, Developer Portal

GCP offers three API management solutions — API Gateway (simple and cheap), Cloud Endpoints (based on ESPv2), and Apigee (full enterprise features). This article walks through their differences, when to pick each one, pricing, and how they compare to other clouds.

Comparing the Three Services

API Gateway in Detail

Key Features

• Define APIs with the OpenAPI 2.0 spec
• API Key auth, OAuth 2.0, and JWT
• Backends: Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GKE, Compute, and external HTTPS
• Rate limiting (Quota)
• Cloud Monitoring / Logging integration
• Multi-region HA

Example API Definition (OpenAPI)

swagger: "2.0"
info:
  title: "My API"
  version: "1.0"
host: "my-api.endpoints.PROJECT.cloud.goog"
schemes: ["https"]
paths:
  /users:
    get:
      summary: "List users"
      operationId: "listUsers"
      x-google-backend:
        address: "https://my-cloud-run-service.run.app"
      security:
        - api_key: []
      responses:
        '200': {description: "OK"}
securityDefinitions:
  api_key:
    type: "apiKey"
    name: "key"
    in: "query"

Apigee X in Detail

Key Features

• API Proxy: Wrapper for backend APIs (Apigee Edge compatible)
• Policies: 50+ policy types covering auth, transformation, rate limiting, caching, logging, and more
• Developer Portal: Public-facing portal for API consumers
• Monetization: API usage billing (metered or subscription)
• Analytics: Traffic, latency, top apps, and other analytics
• Apigee Sense: Fraud detection (bots and API abuse)
• Hybrid: Run the runtime on on-prem GKE

Example Policy (Quota)

<Quota name="QuotaPolicy">
  <Allow count="1000"/>
  <Interval>1</Interval>
  <TimeUnit>hour</TimeUnit>
  <Identifier ref="developer.app.id"/>
</Quota>

When-to-Use Matrix

Comparison with Other Clouds

Typical Use Cases

• Unified entry point for microservices (API Gateway)
• Publish APIs to partners with a portal (Apigee X)
• Modernize legacy APIs (SOAP → REST, Apigee X)
• API monetization (Apigee X)
• Polyglot gRPC microservices (Cloud Endpoints)

Note: Google Cloud and Apigee are trademarks of Google LLC. For the latest information, see the official Apigee docs and the official API Gateway docs.