Google Cloud Endpoints vs Lura

Google Cloud Endpoints manages APIs with tools for securing access, monitoring activity, analyzing usage, and setting quotas. It supports API descriptions written in OpenAPI 2.0 or 3.x, as well as gRPC, and provides management through ESP or ESPv2. Documented deployment backends include Google Kubernetes Engine, Compute Engine, Kubernetes, App Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Run functions, and Knative serving; proxy availability varies by backend. Endpoints is optimized for Docker and can host an API wherever Docker runs, provided it has internet access to Google Cloud. API keys can be required and validated to identify a Google Cloud project for quotas, billing, and monitoring. Documented user authentication options include Firebase Authentication and Auth0, using JWT validation by ESP. Logs and metrics are viewable in the Google Cloud console. Pricing depends on API calls and Service Control calls: the Free usage tier is free for 1,999,999 calls; Standard is $3 a month for 2,000,000 to 1,000,000,000; and High-volume is $1.50 a month for 1,000,000,000 and above. Listed rates are per million API calls.

Lura is a free, open-source Go library for building stateless API gateways and proxies in cloud-native or on-premises deployments. It combines multiple backend sources behind endpoints, allowing a client to request data through one endpoint and receive only the needed fields. Its proxy can group, wrap, transform, and reduce responses, with an EntityFormatter for response manipulation. The framework is organized around configuration, router, and proxy packages, with helpers for encoding, logging, and service discovery. Documented middleware covers balancing, concurrent requests, request and response logging, response merging, and HTTP URL patterns. Lura supports HTTP(S), while adapters for Thrift, gRPC, AMQP, and NATS can be added. The router layer can use other routers, frameworks, or middleware, and generic libraries support plugins such as OAuth layers. It is compiled from source and requires Go. Pricing is free.