Apiman vs KrakenD API Gateway

Apiman is open-source API management software for securing API access and handling discovery and governance across the API lifecycle. Its policy-based runtime governance supports multiple plans with different service levels for the same API. The management layer includes a REST API, Manager UI, and standalone Developer Portal, along with multi-tenancy, events, notifications, permissions, and approvals. Teams can create custom policies and components with Java plugins, which can be loaded at runtime without restarting. Gateways scale independently from the Manager and can keep running if the Manager goes down. Supported gateway platforms are Vert.x, WildFly, and Tomcat. Standard policies cover authorization, BASIC authentication, IP allowlisting and blocklisting, OAuth2/JWT through the Keycloak plugin, and HTTP security headers. Apiman is licensed under Apache License 2.0, with no features behind paywalls. It is primarily an HTTP gateway: WebSockets lack explicit testing or support, while raw TCP, raw UDP, and messaging protocols are unsupported. Version 3.x is community-supported; versions 2.x and 1.x are unsupported. Commercial support packages are also described as including 24/7 support and CVE patching and alerts.

KrakenD API Gateway is a stateless, distributed gateway for connecting, securing, aggregating, and transforming APIs and AI workloads. It can combine data from multiple services into one response shaped for client needs. Traffic controls include rate limiting, circuit breaking, IP filtering, bot detection, and load balancing. Connectivity includes REST, RabbitMQ, SNS, SQS, Kafka, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, and Lambda; listed protocols also include HTTP, WebSockets, AMQP, and NATS. Authentication options include JWT, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, client credentials, API keys, Basic Authentication, and mTLS. KrakenD is self-hosted, with deployment choices including Docker, Kubernetes, cloud marketplace virtual machines, and Linux packages or binaries. The maker says the development Docker image can be used on Windows, Mac, or Linux, and KrakenD runs natively on Linux and Mac OS. Community Edition costs nothing and includes unlimited requests, APIs, and AI workloads. AI Gateway and AI security are Enterprise features.