Apigee vs DreamFactory

What is Apigee?

Apigee bills itself as "the cross-cloud API management platform." Formerly its own entity, Apigee was acquired by Google in 2016 in an eye-popping $625 million deal, and is now part of Google Cloud Platform. The company’s flagship Apigee Edge platform is intended to help simplify the process of designing, deploying, managing, and analyzing enterprise APIs.

Looking for an objective assessment of Apigee? You’re not alone, especially if you’re looking for Apigee alternatives. This article will offer a comparison with what we believe is the best Apigee alternative: DreamFactory. By the end of this all-in-one guide, you’ll be informed and aware so that you can make the right choice for your business.

The Best Apigee Alternative: DreamFactory

DreamFactory is a cloud and on-premise API management solution for mobile, web, and IoT applications. The DreamFactory “API as a service” platform makes it easy for even non-technical users to build clean, beautiful REST APIs, without a single line of code.

Here are the main differences between Apigee and DreamFactory:

• Both DreamFactory and Apigee are powerful and feature-rich API management platforms. However, DreamFactory can instantly create REST APIs for all of the most popular data sources, while Apigee can only manage existing APIs.
• Both DreamFactory and Apigee have excellent user ratings, with DreamFactory coming out slightly ahead.
• DreamFactory seems to offer a better return on investment than Apigee, according to many reviews.
• DreamFactory runs both in the cloud and on-premises, while Apigee is a cloud-only solution.

Apigee vs. DreamFactory: Features

Apigee has the backing of a tech titan in the form of Google, so it’s no surprise that Apigee has many features to recommend it. Yet DreamFactory is no slouch—in terms of features, it stacks up against Apigee incredibly well!

The features of Apigee and DreamFactory include:

• Service creation: DreamFactory's streamlined interface allows you to create new database APIs in less than 3 minutes. How easy is it? Check out this video.
• API key management: DreamFactory automatically generates and manages your platform API keys. You're free to create as many keys as you please, and you can revoke them anytime.
• Role-based access control (RBAC): DreamFactory supports robust RBAC capabilities. You can limit users to specific endpoints and methods through the point-and-click administrative interface.
• Data transformation: DreamFactory's scripting feature ensures that business logic can be attached to any endpoint. This allows you to transform, obfuscate, and remove data prior to the payload being forwarded on to the destination client.
• Data mapping: DreamFactory's Data Mesh feature allows you to merge data hailing from multiple databases into a single API response. This tool is database- and location-agnostic—for example, you could merge data from a MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server database. See it in action.
• Data caching: DreamFactory supports multiple caching solutions, including Redis and Memcached. You can configure services to cache API responses for any desired period of time.
• Transaction support: DreamFactory supports the ability to both continue and rollback the update of multiple records in a single API call.
• API analytics: DreamFactory integrates with the powerful Elastic Stack platform, so you can create amazing dashboards highlighting all aspects of your API behaviors.
• API limiting: DreamFactory's point-and-click API limiting feature allows you to define granular limits according to API, role, endpoint, and user. You can even apply verb-specific limits—for instance, allowing 1,000 GET calls but only 100 POST calls within a specified time period.
• High availability: It's possible to run DreamFactory in high-availability environments, as well as horizontally and vertically scale the platform to suit any load requirement.

However, in this Apigee vs. DreamFactory comparison, one thing must be said: only DreamFactory is able to create REST APIs from scratch. Apigee, for its part, can only manage existing APIs, not create new ones. This feature might be a make-or-break issue for users considering the question of Apigee vs. DreamFactory.

Apigee vs. DreamFactory: Reviews

Thanks in part to this rich array of features, both Apigee and DreamFactory have rave reviews on websites like G2.

The Apigee Edge API management platform currently has a rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars on G2, earning it G2’s designation of “Leader” for API management software.

Internet small business founder Dave A. gives Apigee five stars, writing: “I like the way Apigee Edge handles the creation and editing of API proxies. The mechanisms they use for tracing traffic through those proxies is clear and understandable to most people who already know how to run a website.”

While most Apigee reviews are largely positive, some users complain of issues with ease of use and customizability, as well as noticeably high prices.

For its part, DreamFactory has a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars at G2, earning the title of G2 “High Performer” in the field of API management software.

User Josiah R. leaves DreamFactory a five-star review, writing: “DreamFactory is super easy to configure new endpoints in. Connecting to both closed and open-source DBMS is easy, and the consistent way of exposing endpoints makes libraries of code really easy to reuse. The support is also really good—often just a few seconds on chat.”

Apigee vs. DreamFactory: Pricing

Wondering about the price of Apigee vs. DreamFactory? So are many other businesses. The good news is that for all its features, DreamFactory is surprisingly affordable.

DreamFactory pricing starts at $499 per month. Users can select from three service tiers: small business, professional, and enterprise. These higher tiers include advanced DreamFactory features such as an unlimited number of API calls, additional connectors, and use across multiple organizations and environments.

Unlike DreamFactory, Apigee pricing is not publicly available. Users can try Apigee for free with the evaluation tier, which includes 100,000 API calls per month for one user only, with a time limit of 60 days.

Apigee also includes three paid tiers: standard, enterprise, and enterprise plus. Higher tiers offer more API calls, higher availability guarantees, and use across a greater number of organizations and environments.

Even without an explicit list of prices, we can discover some valuable insights into Apigee prices by reading Apigee reviews.

G2 reviewer Kennedy M., for example, complains about the high cost of Apigee, writing: “The pricing is a bit too high, especially when starting out.” Another G2 reviewer agrees, calling Apigee “a bit pricey.”

Users share similar sentiments about the cost of Apigee on the business software review website Capterra. Software developer and Capterra review Dante G. calls Apigee “a bit expensive for the way the platform offers its service.” Another reviewer writes: “The pricing is very expensive and the pricing model is outdated. I would prefer a pay-as-you-go model for pricing.” 

DreamFactory: The Best Apigee Alternative

Apigee is a strong API management solution for certain use cases: for example, existing users of Google Cloud Platform.

But if you want an API management solution that can run both in the cloud and on-premises, or if you’re more sensitive to software costs, give DreamFactory a try. Our mature, robust, and budget-friendly API management platform has earned rave reviews from businesses large and small.

Want to test DreamFactory out for yourself? Schedule a meeting with our team for a 14-day free trial of the DreamFactory platform.