What is API Connect?
IBM API Connect® is a complete, modern, intuitive and scalable API platform that lets you create, securely expose, manage and monetize APIs across clouds so that you and your customers can power digital applications and spur innovation. IBM API Connect is also available with other capabilities as an IBM Cloud Pak® solution, which can help you achieve your application modernization goals as part of your journey to cloud.
See how API Connect stands out
Secure
API Connect’s security is built on market-leading IBM DataPower® Gateway. It includes a single, signed, encrypted gateway, which greatly reduces your risk.
Proven
Twenty-two percent of market share is held by API Connect — more than any other competitor.¹ It's a trusted API solution to manage and protect services and data across multi-cloud environments.
Scalable
With a microservices-based architecture that can seamlessly scale its components to meet SLAs, API Connect improves the API user experience while maintaining performance.
Intuitive
An award-winning user experience design makes it easy for you to rapidly create, secure and manage APIs, reducing administrative time so you can get more from your investment.
Flexible
API Connect works wherever your applications and data are—on premises, in containers or in the cloud—deploying anywhere Docker containers are supported. It also easily adapts to any enterprise needs.
Robust
API Connect does it all, with the tools to agilely create, secure, manage and share APIs while maintaining continuous availability, so you can expand your API strategy to meet changing user needs.
By working with more than 500 API Connect clients, the IBM team has refined the API platform to expertly handle the vast majority of potential business use cases. Here are the top five.
Secure your APIs
Securely expose existing systems of record, databases or services through APIs to develop new mobile, Internet of Things (IoT) and web applications by easily applying built-in policies to help secure, control and mediate API delivery with virtually unmatched scale.
Manage your APIs
Rapidly publish, govern, socialize, analyze, monitor and monetize APIs with built-in capabilities at every stage of the lifecycle, from planning, designing and developing to testing, deploying and retiring.
Socialize your APIs
Engage internal and external API consumers through both a company-branded self-service portal and community-building capabilities, driving API discovery and monetization, and broadening business and partnerships.
Test and monitor your APIs
Rely on automated and collaborative no-code testing to consistently produce high-quality APIs. Monitor API health and set up notifications so you solve potential problems before customers see them.
Create new APIs
Accelerate API developer productivity with simplified methods and a built-in toolkit, allowing them to automatically create APIs that expose data, microservices, enterprise applications and SaaS services.
Successfully manage APIs across clouds
API Connect lets you centrally manage your APIs across multicloud deployments. It offers security-rich support to deploy and independently scale components based on workload across multiple diverse services and platforms, including public clouds like IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and private clouds like IBM Cloud Private and standard Kubernetes. This innovative container- and microservices-based design provides you with unmatched scalability and performance.
Meet the advanced features of API Connect
API manager
API manager is an intuitive user interface that lets you manage APIs for internal use or to externally monetize and manage services as REST or SOAP APIs.
IBM DataPower Gateway
IBM’s best-in-class gateway can secure, control and log API traffic and interactions on an enterprise level, handling complex integrations and supporting containers while maintaining performance.
Developer portal
Share your APIs with application developers through a company-branded portal. Developers can discover and subscribe to APIs as well as register and deploy associated applications.
Developer toolkit
Get all the tools your API developers need for modeling, developing and testing APIs and LoopBack® applications, and then publishing them to API Connect.
Cloud manager
Let your cloud administrator easily configure, manage and monitor your API Connect on-premises cloud with a simple user interface.
Get API lifecycle support from one of the industry’s best
No. 1 market share
IDC recognized IBM API Connect® as the market share leader for 2018, with more share than the next two competitors combined.
2018 Wave Leader
The Forrester Wave market report named API Connect a 2018 leader among API management solutions.
2019 iF Design Award
The IBM Cloud™ design team won iF’s Communications—Software Application category award for API Connect.
Testimonials
“ With IBM API Connect, we can get new features to market up to four times faster. ”
- Eric Barault
- Co-founder and Technical Director
- Carbip
Client stories
API Connect wins 2019 iF Design Award
For the second year in a row, the iF Design Awards have recognized the work of the IBM Cloud design team. This year, the team won for its design of API Connect in the Communications—Software Application category. The iF label is renowned worldwide for outstanding design services, and the iF Design Award is among one of the greatest design accomplishments. A jury consisting of top experts from around the world reviewed 6,375 entries submitted from 52 countries.
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Footnotes
¹ IDC Worldwide Integration Middleware and API Management Software Market Shares, 2017: Business Is Booming Including License Revenue, July 2018.