Is Apigee or Ory better?

Neither clearly leads. Apigee starts at $500/monthly and Ory at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Apigee or Ory?

Ory has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $500/monthly for Apigee and Free for Ory.

Does Apigee or Ory run on more platforms?

Apigee runs on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises. Ory runs on web, api.

Can I use Ory for free?

Yes. Ory has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Apigee starts at $500/monthly.

What is Apigee best used for?

Apigee is most often used for publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program, monetizing apis and running a developer portal, analyzing api traffic and defending apis against bots and abuse. Of those, publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program and monetizing apis and running a developer portal are not what Ory is typically brought in for.

What can Apigee do that Ory cannot?

Apigee covers API Gateway, API Analytics, Developer Portal, Google Cloud services. Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations.

API Management · head to head

Apigee vs Ory

Apigee

API Management

API management platform for designing, securing, and scaling APIs

From: $500/monthly
Rated: -

Full review Website

Ory

Identity & Access Management

Open-source identity, authentication, and permissions infrastructure

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Ory has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Apigee the free evaluation is a sandbox limited to 60 days; Ory production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
They diverge on capability: Apigee covers API Gateway, Ory covers Authentication APIs.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Apigee and Ory actually diverge.

Attributes where Apigee and Ory differ
Attribute	Apigee	Ory
Starting price	$500/monthly	Free
Pricing model	subscription	usage-based
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises	web, api
Category	API Management	Identity & Access Management
Founded	2006	Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Apigee

API Gateway
API Analytics
Developer Portal
Google Cloud services
Azure
AWS
Okta
Cloud support

Only in Ory

Authentication APIs
Permissions engine
Machine-to-machine tokens
B2B organizations
SAML SSO
Multi-region deployments

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Apigee

Publishing, securing and versioning APIs for an enterprise API programnot Ory
Monetizing APIs and running a developer portalnot Ory
Analyzing API traffic and defending APIs against bots and abusenot Ory

Ory

Adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new productnot Apigee
Implementing fine-grained permission checksnot Apigee
Supporting B2B organizations and multi-tenancynot Apigee
Building machine-to-machine authentication for microservicesnot Apigee

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Apigee

The free evaluation is a sandbox limited to 60 days
Pay-as-you-go has no SLA available at all
Pay-as-you-go bills environments separately from API calls, with a Base environment costing $365 per month per region
The Base environment is capped at 50 QPS with an SLA of up to 99%
Standard API Proxy calls are billed at $20 per 1M calls up to 50M, and Extensible API Proxy calls at $100 per 1M calls up to 50M
API Analytics is a paid add-on at $20 per 1M API calls and cannot be bought on a Base environment
Advanced API Security is a paid add-on at $350 per 1M API calls and cannot be bought on a Base environment
Monetization is unavailable on pay-as-you-go and requires a subscription tier
Additional API proxy deployments beyond those included cost $0.04 per hour per region on a Comprehensive environment
Subscription tiers Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus are quote only with no published price
Google Cloud networking charges for IP addresses, data transfer out and forwarding rules are billed on top of Apigee usage

Ory

Production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
SAML SSO and multi-region deployments are reserved for the custom-priced Enterprise tier.
Usage-based pricing across aDAU, M2M tokens, and permission checks makes cost estimation more complex than flat per-MAU billing.

Pricing, plan by plan

Apigee

$500/monthly

Starter$500/monthly
- API gateway
- Analytics
- Developer portal
Professional$2500/monthly
- Advanced security
- Traffic management
- Monetization
Enterprise$undefined/monthly
- Custom deployment
- SLA
- Dedicated support

Ory

Free

DeveloperFree
- Community support
- No production environments
Production$64/month
- $21 monthly credit included
- 1 production environment
- 3 staging environments
Growth$779/month
- $255 monthly credit included
- 2 production environments
- B2B organizations (max 3)

Which should you pick?

Choose Apigee if

You need api gateway.
You work on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises.
You also want api analytics.

Apigee review

Choose Ory if

You need authentication apis.
You want to start without paying.
You work on web, api.
You also want permissions engine.

Ory review

Questions people ask

Is Apigee or Ory better?: Neither clearly leads. Apigee starts at $500/monthly and Ory at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Apigee or Ory?: Ory has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $500/monthly for Apigee and Free for Ory.
Does Apigee or Ory run on more platforms?: Apigee runs on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises. Ory runs on web, api.
Can I use Ory for free?: Yes. Ory has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Apigee starts at $500/monthly.
What is Apigee best used for?: Apigee is most often used for publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program, monetizing apis and running a developer portal, analyzing api traffic and defending apis against bots and abuse. Of those, publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program and monetizing apis and running a developer portal are not what Ory is typically brought in for.
What can Apigee do that Ory cannot?: Apigee covers API Gateway, API Analytics, Developer Portal, Google Cloud services. Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Ory: What does Ory cost?

Ory has a free Developer tier, a Production plan at $770/year including a $21 monthly credit, a Growth plan at $9,350/year including a $255 monthly credit, and custom Enterprise pricing.

Source

Ory: How is usage metered?

Beyond the included credit, Ory charges per average daily active user (aDAU), per machine-to-machine token, and per permission check, with lower per-unit rates on the Growth plan.

Source

Ory: What payment methods are supported?

Ory accepts credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) and bank transfer, processed via Stripe.

Source

Apigee vs Ory

Apigee

Ory

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Apigee

Only in Ory

What people use each for

Apigee

Ory

Where each one falls short

Apigee

Ory

Pricing, plan by plan

Apigee

Ory

Which should you pick?

Choose Apigee if

Choose Ory if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Apigee

More on Ory

Keep looking

Other head to heads