Layer7 API Management Other Solutions Considered

VK
Enterprise Integration Architect at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Compared to leading products like Azure API Management, Google Apigee, and MuleSoft, it seems that Layer7 API Management has fallen behind due to a lack of recent innovation and investment.

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SP
Sr. Systems Engineer at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We were thinking about the Apache system at that time, as well as the Oracle server and architecture.

I used CA in my previous organization so I'm committed to it. To me, it met our requirements at that time, which helped us choose it for this organization.

At that time, Oracle didn't actually have a gateway. Although they have now acquired a gateway, I think CA API Gateway is more mature. It's been there for a long time, even before CA purchased it, so in this space they are the best. We also did the research and looked at resources like the Gartner Report, and CA API Gateway seems to rank top on the list.

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HK
Director of Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

If I'm looking for an API management vendor then I would look at the API management vendor's capability, their products capability to make their services available on the Cloud, monetization, security, availability, performance, resiliency, being flexible enough to provide different security integration mechanisms to different APIs, how flexible that software is and user intuitiveness.

My operational personnel should be able to be running from the get-go. I think these are some of the key attributes that we really look at. We did a comprehensive analysis on CA API Management followed by Apigee, followed by SOA software. We did a comprehensive analysis of balance score card by comparing the capabilities and the attributes across all these softwares on a scale of 1 to 10 and then the scorecard came in such a way that CA API Management stood out on every scale for us.

I think cost was also one of the key factors. We figure that Apigee and other software were on a higher scale from the cost standpoint, so I think that played a major role.

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Buyer's Guide
Layer7 API Management
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
ES
API Technical Lead at Sanlam

Yes, we short listed CA Layer7 (Broadcom), IBM, and Apigee as our final three. We also looked at other products, including the big open source products in the market e.g. Kong.

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MJ
Lead Architect at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For an API management solution, we chose the Google Apigee Edge platform. We went a different direction because CA was somewhat limited on some of the lifecycle management things that we were looking for. We use Apigee for modernizing legacy systems and for monetizing APIs, among other things.

We were one of the earlier adopters of the gateway technologies. I don't remember what we compared CA to back then. Lately, it has been between Apigee and MuleSoft and CA. We did that comparison.

We evaluate every five years. We see if we need to stay where we are or go in a different direction. Technology changes quite quickly.

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AS
ALiBS Solutions at ALiBS Solutions

My clients evaluate others solutions before they chose this one, such as AWS, and Apigee from Google. The most common option that they evaluated was Apigee because of the price.

The main difference was AWS and Apigee to this solution is they have a lower price but they do not have all the features that this solution has. It depends on the client, they have to decide between what features they want to implement. If there are not many features to implement they can go with Apigee or AWS, but if there are more complex implementations they try to go with Layer7.

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it_user581829 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architecture / Digital Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

We evaluated MuleSoft, Apigee, and 3scale.

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AT
GM - Head of Digital Transformation at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

We found that API Connect had superior features. The security protocols in CA's product, for financial services, weren't as good as those in API Connect.

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JK
Senior Director IAM Security Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

We did not have a previous solution, but we did evaluate Mulesoft as an alternative and, possibly, Informatica. We ultimately decided that our relationship with CA, and the type integration with some of the other applications that we had deployed in the enterprise, made the API Gateway a much better option for us.

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it_user881124 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

TIBCO Mashery, Mulesoft.

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it_user482415 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have a process to follow to pick up a vendor. We look at the company to see how the company is doing, what is the market presence for them and the maintainability, manageability, supportability, scalability, and whether they are meeting all the functional requirements. We have an individual line item for every section of this and we score them individually, that's how we pick our vendors.

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YH
Software Developer III at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have been evaluating NGINX. I have found NGINX has a better UI than Layer7 API Management. Most of the features that NGINX has are already supported in Layer7 API Management.

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it_user17886 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, IT Security & IT Office of the CIO at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We knew we needed some kind of API security gateway to basically sit on the edge of our network and police what could get in, and do other things like translate API calls. We wanted a simple API call to be translatable to multiple backend system. Before we were just using traditional web proxy servers, not really API focused.

We used IBM DataPower at the time. Both HP and Oracle were OEMing the Layer7 product at the time, and the fact that HP was OEMing it was certainly a factor. We were looking for someone that’s innovative; someone we can trust to be a long-term partner.

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it_user882708 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development - Alliances and Partnerships at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

The options that I had were Apigee and Mulesoft.

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PB
Computer Scientist at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

This product existed here before I started with this team so it has been here for last six or seven years. I've only been here for two and a half years. I'm not sure what kind of evaluation took place, what the criteria were for the evaluation. But, I'm pretty sure that they would have evaluated two or three products before choosing CA API Gateway. Our company itself already has two gateways.

I think the main criteria here were in terms of software security, mostly securing the APIs in terms of SQL insertion attacks or XML structure attacks. They were looking more at securing the APIs and CA was probably the best at it.

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it_user572838 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, .Net And Mobile Applications Development at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I did some due diligence. I think you always have to do some due diligence, and I looked at some other products. I don't think any of them met my needs, not as good as this product did.

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it_user479754 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founding Partner - Principal at Vanick Digital

Looking at broad capabilities, looking at stability of the company, today you need to look at vendors that are staying up with the demands of the market and where the market is heading, and making sure that the improvements being made to the software are in line with that. I think it's important to look at vendors that are releasing more than twice a year so that you can see rapid deployment of technology.

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it_user778794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Principal at FedEx Corporation

We already have ELA with multiple product vendors. It is a matter of using which one we want and moving forward. 

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it_user348429 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - API Management at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I look for stability in the vendor. I look for their ability to understand our needs. We get a lot of vendors who are not used to working with a Fortune 500 company and the size and complexity of our operation is big and complex. We need vendors that are flexible and who understand that their solution might solve a problem, but that might not solve it the way we need it solve. The flexible vendor that is able to provide multiple solutions typically ends up winning.

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it_user482193 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Manager - Delivery, Enterprise & Platform Architect at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

We looked at Apigee, Axway, Intel Mashery and a few more vendors.

The main thing is whether the product is really good. Look at the Forester and Gartner reports and how the support is, because a lot of good products are out there but we have seen in the past that we don't get good support. These are the major criteria I look at.

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it_user778806 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Clarity Iq Inc

Where I got involved with CA on this product, there were not really competitive products. Since that time, there probably are some companies that have come out, but honestly, I am busy enough, I don't really look because there's no reason to divorce myself from CA on this product.

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it_user778812 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Principal at FedEx Corporation

Initially we were looking into different options. We looked into Apigee, Axway, and CA. We did the whole evaluation, and CA come out to be the winner, because CA is the market industry leader.

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it_user778716 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We did consider other vendors. I wasn't part of the original selection, but it came down to two different vendors, CA being one of them - at the time it was Layer 7. Then we did a proof of concept, so I was involved in that. 

In the end, it was really no contest. I tell our other people about this: That it was a week long proof of concept and the other vendor, it couldn't complete one use case. In one week, they had three people that they brought on-premise to work on our use cases for the proof of concept, and they couldn't complete any of them. Layer 7, they completed all of the use cases in one afternoon. It was pretty convincing.

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it_user457872 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sportsbook Delivery at Gala Coral Interactive

Partly it's obviously the reputation of the vendor, it's the support structures, it's the partners that they deal with. If they put you in touch with a partner to install the software, what is the calibre of the partner that they're dealing, and that reflects on them as an organization. Their licensing structures, how flexible they are to deal with you, these sorts of things. We also looked at Mashery and Apigee.

We chose CA API Management as it was better licensing model, it was better cost model for us. I wanted that product. I'd previously worked in an organization with they'd bought what was in the Layer 7 product, and so I had an understanding of the product, I had an understanding that it had been used in my industry. I knew that it would work, because I'd seen it done before, so those things were quite key for us.

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it_user558081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solutions Architect at Logisticare

I was actually brought into my company to define an architecture that takes them forward because they had a very large ball of mud application that was a compiled executable, and they dumped it on file servers all around the country.

We’re the largest company in our market and the application we have been using is old. I came in and defined a forward-looking architecture. An API Gateway is the centerpiece of any microservices solution.

We looked at Axway, Forum Systems, and CA API Management. We also looked at IBM DataPower, which really wasn't for us. We had ruled out CA because it was too expensive. Then they came to the table and said, "Why not us?" Then we had that whole conversation. I asked if they could make it affordable, and they did.

Our most important criteria when choosing a vendor is their ability to carry the feature set, to support its implementation. Clearly price made a difference. They reached out to us with a number we couldn't refuse; so they made it attractive. We were about to pull the trigger on another API solution, and CA met us more than halfway.

We knew that this technology, which I've used before, was the best in the world. We just didn't think we could afford it. They made it affordable. How could we pass that up? It's absolutely the best technology in this space. There is no doubt about that. That's why we really wanted it, but we didn't think we could afford it. It has been the market dominator forever, and the API Gateway has the most features. It’s the most stable. CA has taken that to the next step. They know how to use the product. Every time we call, somebody's got an answer for us.

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it_user558057 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Software Engineer at a wellness & fitness company with 501-1,000 employees

We did do some research and tried to explore some of the API products available in the market. We did speak to all the different product owners, assessed it and then finally we came up with this solution.

Some of the vendors we looked at were Apigee and Amazon API Gateway.

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it_user558309 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

We considered other vendors like IBM DataPower and also looked into Apigee, which is now taken over by Google.

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SM
CEO at Next Generation Technocom Pvt Ltd

We evaluated Salesforce.

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it_user778611 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Lead Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

We evaluated CA and Google. We chose CA because we already had an embedded solution with them and a good relationship. Pricing was also a factor.

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it_user778536 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a financial services firm

We didn't consider any other vendors.

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it_user631233 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Of IT Development at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Vordel Gateway and IBM DataPower. Both these solutions were evaluated from our end, before CA API Gateway was selected.

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it_user558360 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Group Technology at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We did shortlist other usual vendors namely Apigee, Axway, Mashery that are the other competing products in the market. The number one criteria for selecting this product was CA’s pricing policy as well as its presence in that part of the world from where we come from; it is significantly big compared to all the other companies. In Asia where we come from, not all the companies are present to that extent and you need a level of comfort when you're investing in such a magnitude. You would want the organization to be very strongly present there.

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it_user497217 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of API Management Division at a tech company with 51-200 employees

We work with multiple API solution providers. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. We work with our clients to understand their needs, current IT infrastructure, future-state IT infrastructure, and roadmap, then provide them with our solution recommendations based on this input and our own personal experience implementing API management and identity and access management solutions.

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it_user797973 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Enterprise Solutions - Financial Services at Samsung

I do not have a lot of competitive information on other mobile access or mobile API gateways. So, it is hard for me to say how it ranks against other competitors. I will say that it seems like it is deployed in dozens, if not, over a hundred different companies. That says for itself that it is a very strong product. 

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VK
Senior Technology Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Apigee, IBM API Connect, and MuleSoft are some of the other key products we have evaluated and used.

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it_user882714 - PeerSpot reviewer
Experts in Integration Models at a consultancy with 5,001-10,000 employees

We evaluated the following solutions: IBM, WSO2, and Oracle.

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it_user639678 - PeerSpot reviewer
OSS Enterprise Architect

I don't remember all the evaluated options. We reviewed, it must have been six or seven, maybe more, API management vendors.

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it_user351327 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I believe that they evaluated several different products and this was the best to fit our needs.

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SW
Automation Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
it_user778623 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technologie

We did do some evaluations against other products. Just to name a few, we looked at Mulesoft, WS02. We went with CA because the solution is simple to implement, it fits our use case well, and in terms of price point it also chimes well with our VPs.

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SG
student at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I have experimented with all of the APIM solutions. Each one is fit for different situations but, overall, CA API Management is the best product for the expected functionality.

I have evaluated Apigee, Mulesoft, SoftwareAG, Akana, Kong, and IBM API Connect.

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it_user701361 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Mashery and IBM.

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it_user345549 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Mobile/Web Solution Delivery Manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We also looked at Axway, IBM, and Mashery. We went through a long evaluation and CA's number one strength was the built-in security management features.

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it_user399735 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I believe the company already did a lot evaluations with other similar products.

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it_user674037 - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformation and Change Management Leader at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees
it_user778770 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect

We did evaluate other vendors but we finally chose API Gateway.

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it_user778629 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect

Without naming them, they are the top contenders in the well-known ratings, so the ones that you find there were used as a basis for evaluation and, from then on, we did some deep-dives into the functional capabilities of these products and then decided on a shortlist. Those vendors were then were evaluated by our procurement concerning the financial aspect of the old stuff.

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it_user635433 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech company with 201-500 employees

We evaluated some other options such as IBM WebSphere Message Broker, WSO2 ESB, Oracle ESB, Actional SOAPstation, Fuse ESB / Apache ServiceMix, Mule ESB.

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it_user898710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

Compared to other tools, like Apigee, this is the best tool that I have used.

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AS
Practice Lead at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

We looked at Apigee, Mashery, IBM, MuleSoft, WSO2, and others.

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it_user352995 - PeerSpot reviewer
Expert Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

There were several other options evaluated, but I wasn't a part of that.

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SK
Technical Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

I did not evaluate other products, but have read about them and the features they provide.

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it_user778995 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

We evaluated Forum, obviously. Layer 7 is one we looked into. Axway. IBM, because we use it a lot for e-commerce, so that is an API gateway we have been looking into.

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it_user607752 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant

Yes, IBM and Apigee.

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it_user354006 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Layer 7 was top-of-class in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester, and all that stuff, so I did the selection process there and looked at a couple of different competitors.

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it_user667791 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Infrastructure Architect with 11-50 employees

I don’t remember the story from 2011, but very recently I did an analysis of MuleSoft, Google, AWS, Apigee, and WSO2. WSO2 came in first, and CA standards came in second.

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it_user502011 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Java Developer/ Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Not really , as we were already using CA products like Siteminder , since layer 7 is also a CA product and provide seamless integration with the product thus we chose Layer 7 in first place .

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RS
Consultor de segurança at a tech company with 1-10 employees

Nowadays, we are looking at IBM solutions because other customers required it of us.

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it_user760710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Manager API Management - Digital Technology Services at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Buyer's Guide
Layer7 API Management
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.