Akamai vs Apigee: What are the differences?

Introduction

Akamai and Apigee are both popular cloud-based platforms that offer services related to content delivery network (CDN) and API management respectively. While they share some similarities, there are significant differences between the two. This article aims to highlight the key differences between Akamai and Apigee.

1. Infrastructure and Focus: Akamai is primarily a content delivery network (CDN) provider that focuses on optimizing the delivery of web content to end-users through its globally distributed network of servers. On the other hand, Apigee is a dedicated API management platform that enables organizations to design, build, secure, and scale APIs.

2. Service Offering: Akamai offers a wide range of services, including website acceleration, media delivery, cloud security, and edge computing solutions. In contrast, Apigee specializes in API management, offering features such as API gateway, analytics, developer portal, and security.

3. Architecture: Akamai operates by essentially acting as a proxy between the end-users and the origin servers. It caches and delivers content from its servers closer to the end-users, thereby reducing latency and improving performance. Apigee, on the other hand, functions as an API gateway that acts as an intermediary between clients and backend services, enforcing security policies, controlling access, and providing runtime analytics.

4. Target Audience: As a CDN provider, Akamai caters to a wide range of industries and organizations that seek to deliver their web content faster and more securely. This includes e-commerce websites, media companies, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers, and more. Apigee, being an API management platform, primarily targets enterprises and developers who deal with building, managing, and securing APIs.

5. Development Workflow: When it comes to the development workflow, Akamai primarily focuses on optimizing the delivery of web content and requires partnerships with developers and IT teams to configure and fine-tune the settings. Apigee, on the other hand, is specifically designed to streamline the API development lifecycle with features like API design, development, governance, security, and analytics, providing a comprehensive solution for API management.

In Summary, Akamai specializes in content delivery network (CDN) solutions, while Apigee is dedicated to API management, catering to different needs of organizations that require efficient content delivery and API management respectively.