What is the difference between GCP endpoint and Apigee

Question

What is the difference between GCP endpoint and Apigee? When should I use GCP Endpoint and when should I use APigee.

Any input will be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

I recently spent a few weeks dickering with a prototype in Apigee my overall impression is that it makes the work of API development a snap. The docs are reasonable, and the web interface is complemented by a management API that seems robust. I was able to, with a handful of openAPI3 specs build a functioning API surface, that interacted with a host of external services, pulling data, authenticating; calling external services to parse and return validated data. Once I got through doing tutorials and samples, it was ridiculously straight forward.

Endpoints is another story. The Docs are a not completely up-to-date for each of the services as deployed. I've submitted a few error issues and been told a fix is in a PR as a result. There are a lot of limitations to Endpoints that are hard to discover as they are an interplay of the way you deploy Endpoints (CR, KUbernetes etc) and where you deploy the services (AE, Functions, etc). I've had a hell of a time with Endpoints since I had to abandon Apigee due to it's extravagant cost, even at the lowest they could offer my company. Think of the annual cost on the level of a dev's salary.

While Apigee can make API development up and going really quickly, cost is a significant barrier for small companies eager to get going. Endpoints poses more of a challenge due to the limitations associated with each choice of deployment runtimes. That said, the free quotas on GAE and even their pricing models aren't exorbitant.

Were it my choice, and had the scratch, I'd choose Apigee. Rumor has it they are working on something in between the two.

Answer 2

Basically, both product do the same thing. But they are very different.

First, Endpoint, is integrated to App Engine and can be deployed elsewhere, like on Cloud Run. Endpoint has the basic features of an Endpoint Proxy: authentication, API key validation, JSON to gRPC transcoding, API monitoring, tracing and logging. Endpoint is free (or you pay only the Cloud Run when you deploy on it)

Apigee do the same things, but with more advance features, like quota, billing, request pre and post processing,... In addition, it has the capability to connect APIs that differ than REST and gRPC and thus can be integrated with a legacy application and allow it to expose API even if it hasn't designed for. Apigee is EXPENSIVE, but POWERFUL!

All depends on your use case, and your money!