Azure API Management vs Ocelot: What are the differences?

1. Key difference 1: Authentication and Authorization: Azure API Management provides built-in capabilities for authentication and authorization, allowing you to control access to your APIs based on user identity, client application, or subscription. Ocelot, on the other hand, does not have built-in authentication and authorization capabilities and relies on external authentication mechanisms such as IdentityServer or custom middleware.

2. Key difference 2: Traffic Management: Azure API Management offers advanced traffic management features like rate limiting, IP filtering, and caching, allowing you to manage and control the traffic to your APIs. Ocelot, though it supports basic load balancing and routing, does not provide as extensive traffic management capabilities as Azure API Management.

3. Key difference 3: Developer Portal: Azure API Management includes a developer portal that allows developers to discover, explore, and consume your APIs. The developer portal provides features like API documentation, testing console, and subscription management. Ocelot does not have a built-in developer portal and requires additional tools or custom development for documentation and API consumption.

4. Key difference 4: API Versioning: Azure API Management provides native support for API versioning, allowing you to manage different versions of your APIs and handle versioning-related issues. Ocelot, on the other hand, does not have built-in support for API versioning and requires custom configuration or middleware for handling different API versions.

5. Key difference 5: Analytics and Monitoring: Azure API Management offers extensive analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing you to track and monitor the usage, performance, and health of your APIs. It provides pre-built reports and dashboards for API analytics. Ocelot does not provide built-in analytics and monitoring capabilities and requires integration with external tools or logging frameworks for monitoring and analytics.

6. Key difference 6: Deployment and Management: With Azure API Management, you can easily deploy and manage your APIs in a scalable and distributed manner by leveraging Azure's infrastructure and services. It provides features like automatic scaling, high availability, and seamless integration with Azure services. Ocelot, being a lightweight API gateway, requires manual deployment and management, and does not offer the same level of scalability and integration with cloud infrastructure as Azure API Management.

In Summary, Azure API Management offers out-of-the-box features for authentication, traffic management, developer portal, API versioning, analytics, and easy deployment, whereas Ocelot lacks these built-in capabilities and requires additional tools or custom development for similar functionality.