Software · head to head
Swagger vs Apigee
S
Swagger
Software
API design and documentation platform for building, testing, and managing APIs
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Apigee
Software
API management platform for designing, securing, and scaling APIs
- From
- $500/monthly
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Swagger has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Swagger swaggerHub, the commercial layer over the free open source Swagger tools, is sold in Free, Team and Enterprise tiers with the Enterprise tier requiring a sales contact and no public price, per the vendor pricing page; Apigee the free evaluation is a sandbox limited to 60 days
- They diverge on capability: Swagger covers API Specification, Apigee covers API Gateway.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Swagger and Apigee actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Unknown).
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 Swagger
- API Specification
- Interactive Documentation
- Code Generation
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Azure DevOps
- Jira
- Web support
Only in Apigee
- API Gateway
- API Analytics
- Developer Portal
- Google Cloud services
- Azure
- AWS
- Okta
- Cloud support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Swagger
- API Developmentnot Apigee
- API Gatewaynot Apigee
- API Testingnot Apigee
- API Documentationnot Apigee
- Microservicesnot Apigee
Apigee
- Publishing, securing and versioning APIs for an enterprise API programnot Swagger
- Monetizing APIs and running a developer portalnot Swagger
- Analyzing API traffic and defending APIs against bots and abusenot Swagger
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Swagger
- SwaggerHub, the commercial layer over the free open source Swagger tools, is sold in Free, Team and Enterprise tiers with the Enterprise tier requiring a sales contact and no public price, per the vendor pricing page
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
Pricing, plan by plan
Swagger
Free- FreeFree
- OpenAPI specification
- Swagger UI
- API documentation
- Professional$20/monthly
- Advanced features
- Team collaboration
- API testing
- Enterprise$undefined/monthly
- Custom deployment
- Advanced security
- Dedicated support
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
Which should you pick?
Choose Swagger if
- You need api specification.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, CLI, Desktop.
- You also want interactive documentation.
Choose Apigee if
- You need api gateway.
- You work on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises.
- You also want api analytics.
Questions people ask
- Is Swagger or Apigee better?
- Neither clearly leads. Swagger starts at Free and Apigee at $500/monthly, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Swagger or Apigee?
- Swagger has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Swagger and $500/monthly for Apigee.
- Does Swagger or Apigee run on more platforms?
- Swagger runs on Web, CLI, Desktop. Apigee runs on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises.
- Can I use Swagger for free?
- Yes. Swagger has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Apigee starts at $500/monthly.
- What is Swagger best used for?
- Swagger is most often used for api development, api gateway, api testing, api documentation. Of those, api development and api gateway are not what Apigee is typically brought in for.
- What can Swagger do that Apigee cannot?
- Swagger covers API Specification, Interactive Documentation, Code Generation, GitHub. Apigee covers API Gateway, API Analytics, Developer Portal, Google Cloud services.