Google Apigee vs MuleSoft: How Do You Choose the Right One for You? How Are They Different?

How do you know which API management solution best suits your needs? What fundamental differences would a Google Apigee vs MuleSoft comparison reveal?

What different features and different use cases would it expose, pointing out to you the right platform for your application?

Well, we've compared the 2 API managers for you, so get ready to find your answer to:
 

• What is Apigee? What are its main features?
• What is an API management platform?
• What is MuleSoft?
• What's the difference between Mule ESB and Apigee?
• What is Apigee used for? And what about Mule ESB?

1. What Is Apigee?

It's a cross-cloud API management platform offered by Google.

Source: Google Cloud

But that's just a "teaser" answer to your question, so if you crave for more details:

Apigee is an API gateway tool that provides a secure environment for multiple cloud services and applications to exchange data in.

In short: Google Apigee is that platform that helps you manage all your APIs in one place. A platform that brings together all your digital experiences. 
 

2. What Is an API Management Platform, More Precisely? 

Maybe you feel a bit confused. Left in the dark about what API management platforms are.

Therefore, allow me to delve into (even) more details, so there's no confusion left when I start to actually compare these 2 API managers: Google Apigee vs MuleSoft.

So, an API management platform is:

The process where you manage all your APIs in a secure and scalable environment.

A process that enables you to use an API for overseeing the interface's lifecycle. This way, you make sure that all the apps and developers using that API have their needs met.

Now, there are 3 key functions that an API management platform should support:
 

• security
• monitoring
• version control
   

... and some basic features that would allow you to accelerate innovation in your organization and adapt easily to customer expectations of flexible and scalable technology:
 

• API key and authorization management
• analytics
• live updated documentation
• developer community management
• developer portal to simplify the acquisition and distribution of certain APIs needed for building apps
   

3. Google Apigee: Key Features

Now, that looks tempting enough, doesn't it? To be able to manage all your APIs from one central place...

But what features, designed to streamline the whole API management process, does Apigee provide you with?

How precisely does it help you be effective when managing your APIs?
 

• it provides constant version updates
• it provides troubleshooting options
• it taps into machine learning and analytics to generate actionable insights
• it scales to your needs
• it supports multi-cloud and hybrid cloud 
• it automates the process of generating API documentation and software development kits
• it speeds up the implementation of API proxies with integrated metrics and dashboards
• it provides a modern UI for your legacy data stores
• it provides monitoring tools for security, API troubleshooting, and optimization

4. What Is MuleSoft?

Since we're about to make a MuleSoft API management vs Apigee comparison, your question is more than legitimate:

Source: MuleSoft.com
 

MuleSoft is a software company that provides an integration platform — Mule ESB — for centralizing all the apps, data, and devices across the on-premise and cloud environments in an organization.
 

5. Google Apigee vs MuleSoft: What's the Difference?

And we're back to the initial question:

What's the difference between MuleSoft and Apigee, after all?

For they're both API management platforms, they both seem to be serving the same API centralization and management needs and they're equally popular.

Here's a first differentiator:

In Google Apigee APIs are consumption-centric, whereas in Mule ESB they're exposure-focused (or reuse-focused).

Now, let's dig out some more ways in which they differ:
 

5.1. Mule ESB
 

• higher ongoing operational costs compared to Apigee
• ships with a wide array of connectors, for all major platforms —Twitter, Facebook, SAP, Salesforce — and business process management software; this makes it easier to be integrated to other systems and services
• it provides some of the most robust features in API management: oAuth, throttling, access levels...
• it makes implementing a CI/CD environment conveniently easy
• it supports a whole variety of interaction patterns since it ships with lots of adapters and robust message-oriented middleware
   

5.2. Apigee
 

• it grants you close control of user access; you can even grant users granular control based on their particular needs and adjust the services' requests based on users' specific requirements
• it allows branding
• it provides support for JMS and SMTP functionality 
• it integrates seamlessly with other platforms
   

6. When Do You Use One API Manager over the Other? Specific Use Cases

In other words: which one to use?

Say you need to expose some services in your app: should you go with Google Apigee or Mule ESB?

To make an informed decision, here are some of the typical uses cases of each API manager:
 

6.1. Mule ESB
 

• more appropriate for REST API development
• best suited for system-to-system integration 
• covers a bigger scope, compared to Google Apigee
   

6.2. Apigee
 

• best suited for connected apps scenarios
• the best option if you're planning to update your legacy apps and to enable data exchange across your ecosystem of apps and services
• when you just need full API lifecycle management: a platform that exposes your services in a secure way and ships with powerful API governance and management features like caching, analytics, etc.

The END!

Have I answered your "Google Apigee vs MuleSoft" question(s)? 

If so:
 

Which API management solution do you think that best suits your needs?

Image by Juraj Lenhard from Pixabay