Apiman vs Stoplight Elements

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.

Stoplight Elements is a free, open-source set of embeddable web components for building interactive API documentation from OpenAPI documents. It adds customizable left navigation and a three-column layout, while an embedded console lets readers try requests and inspect responses within the documentation. Elements supports OpenAPI, including version 3.1, and JSON Schema. It provides code samples in Curl, Python, Ruby, and Java, and its Stoplight-flavored Markdown supports tabs, callouts, and embedded JSON examples. The components require no build steps and can be used with any framework or HTML project. Documentation can be hosted anywhere, including S3 or GitHub. Elements can point to an OpenAPI document or a Stoplight Workspace and can work with any OpenAPI editor. The listed plan costs nothing and includes OpenAPI 3.1 support, an interactive API console, embedding into an existing CMS, and hosting anywhere. Compared with Elements DevPortal, the product page does not list multiple API listings, mocking, Markdown articles, branch version selection, or search. Stoplight identifies SmartBear as its parent company.