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Apache APISIX Review

Apache APISIX is an open-source API Gateway designed for high-performance traffic management across APIs, microservices, and LLM workloads.

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Why it matters

1Apache APISIX is an open-source project under the Apache Software Foundation, built on Nginx and LuaJIT with etcd for dynamic configuration.

2It supports over 100 plugins for features like authentication, logging, and service discovery.

3Apache APISIX 3.18.0, released August 20, 2026, introduced AI response caching and semantic model routing.

4It achieves an added latency of 0.2 ms and a QPS per core of approximately 18,000.

Specs

API Docs

View Documentation →

GitHub

View Repository →

API Available

Yes, public API

overview

What is Apache APISIX?

Apache APISIX is a API Gateway tool developed by Apache Software Foundation that enables developers and organizations to manage, monitor, and route API requests with high scalability and performance. It functions as a single entry point for client requests, forwarding them to backend services, and includes an AI Gateway specifically built for LLM and AI workloads.

Apache APISIX is a dynamic, cloud-native, and high-performance API gateway, serving as a robust platform for managing microservices, service mesh, and API traffic. It is an open-source project under the Apache Software Foundation, built on Nginx and LuaJIT with etcd for dynamic configuration. Its core function is to manage, monitor, and route API requests with high scalability and performance, supporting various protocols and integrations.

features

Key Features of Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX provides a comprehensive suite of features for API management, traffic control, and security, with specialized capabilities for AI and LLM workloads. Its architecture, built on Nginx and etcd, allows for dynamic configuration and high performance.

Dynamic routing and load balancing for APIs, microservices, and LLM workloads.
AI Gateway with multi-LLM proxy supporting over 20 providers, LLM load balancing, retry, and fallback.
Prompt security features including guardrails, content moderation, and decoration.
Centralized authentication (e.g., JWT, OAuth2), authorization, IP filtering, and dynamic SSL certificate handling.
Real-time observability with integrations for Prometheus, Grafana, Apache SkyWalking, and Zipkin.
Rate limiting and throttling with multi-rule support to protect backend services.
Support for Kubernetes integration for managing API traffic in microservices architectures.
API aggregation and transformation capabilities.
Over 100 built-in plugins for extended functionality.

use cases

Who Should Use Apache APISIX?

Apache APISIX is ideal for organizations and developers requiring a high-performance, flexible, and scalable API gateway solution, particularly those operating cloud-native environments and managing microservices or AI/LLM applications.

Cloud-Native Architects and DevOps Teams: For managing microservices architectures, service mesh, and API traffic with dynamic routing and Kubernetes integration.
AI/ML Engineers and Data Scientists: For proxying, securing, and governing traffic to LLM providers, implementing LLM load balancing, and prompt security.
Enterprise IT Departments: For centralized API security, traffic management, and observability across diverse backend services.
Developers Building High-Traffic Applications: For ensuring continuous availability, resilience, and low-latency performance through advanced load balancing and circuit breaking.
Organizations Seeking Open-Source Solutions: For leveraging a community-driven, extensible platform with no licensing costs for the core product.

how to use

How to Use Apache APISIX

To begin using Apache APISIX, users typically deploy the gateway, configure routes and upstreams, and then apply plugins for desired functionalities such as authentication or rate limiting. The process involves setting up the core APISIX instance and then defining its behavior via configuration.

1Install Apache APISIX: Deploy APISIX using Docker, Kubernetes Helm Charts, or directly from source on Linux distributions like Ubuntu.
2Configure Routes: Define API routes to map client requests to specific backend services, specifying URI patterns, methods, and hostnames.
3Set Up Upstreams: Configure upstream groups to manage backend service instances, enabling load balancing, health checks, and failover strategies.
4Apply Plugins: Enable and configure built-in plugins for features like JWT authentication, Prometheus monitoring, rate limiting, or IP filtering.
5Manage AI Gateway: Utilize specific configurations for LLM workloads, including multi-LLM proxy setup, token rate limiting, and prompt security guardrails.
6Monitor Traffic: Integrate with observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana to monitor API traffic, performance, and system health in real-time.

pricing

Apache APISIX Pricing & Plans

Apache APISIX is an open-source project released under the Apache 2.0 License, making its core functionality available for free. There are no direct pricing tiers or subscription costs associated with the open-source version.

Open Source: Free (includes all core features, plugins, and AI Gateway capabilities)

Pros

+High performance and scalability, handling thousands of requests per second with low latency (0.2 ms added latency).
+Dynamic configuration and hot updates without service restarts, beneficial for CI/CD pipelines.
+Extensible through a rich plugin ecosystem (over 100 built-in plugins) and support for custom plugins.
+Specialized AI Gateway features for LLM workloads, including multi-LLM proxy, load balancing, and prompt security.
+Seamless integration with Kubernetes for managing API traffic in microservices architectures.
+Open-source under Apache 2.0 License, providing full functionality without licensing costs.

Cons

−User interface may not support all features, requiring CLI or API for some advanced configurations.
−Some users perceive gaps in official documentation for specific features, necessitating thorough review.
−Routing algorithms could be improved in certain complex scenarios.
−While continuously improving, some users have historically desired more AI-specific features (though recent updates address this).

Similar Tools

Apache APISIX vs Competitors

Apache APISIX competes in the API Gateway market against both open-source and commercial solutions, distinguishing itself through its Nginx+LuaJIT architecture for performance, dynamic configuration, and specialized AI Gateway features.

Kong Gateway (Community Edition)↗

Kong Gateway is a widely adopted open-source API Gateway known for its plugin-based architecture, allowing extensive customization and functionality extensions.

While both are high-performance open-source API gateways, Kong has a very mature ecosystem and a vast library of plugins, potentially offering more out-of-the-box integrations than APISIX, though APISIX often boasts slightly higher raw performance benchmarks in some scenarios.

Envoy ProxyOn Stork

Envoy Proxy is a high-performance, open-source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications, often used as an API gateway, service mesh, or load balancer.

Envoy is a highly flexible and powerful proxy that requires more configuration and operational overhead to set up as a full API gateway compared to APISIX, which provides a more opinionated and ready-to-use API gateway solution out of the box.

KrakenD API Gateway↗

KrakenD is an ultra-high performance API Gateway that focuses on stateless processing and aggregation of microservices, designed for speed and efficiency.

KrakenD excels in raw performance and aggregation patterns, potentially outperforming APISIX in specific use cases requiring extreme speed, but it offers fewer built-in features for advanced traffic management and AI/LLM specific workloads compared to APISIX's broader feature set.

See every Apache APISIX alternative, compared→