Apache APISIX vs. AWS API Gateway

AWS API Gateway eliminates operational overhead entirely. You do not manage servers, handle scaling, apply patches, or worry about high availability — AWS handles everything. This makes it excellent for small teams, proof-of-concept projects, and serverless architectures where Lambda functions serve as backends. You pay per request and get instant availability.

Apache APISIX requires you to provision and manage infrastructure — APISIX nodes plus an etcd cluster. In exchange, you get full control: choose your deployment topology, retain all logs and data on your infrastructure, customize plugins, and avoid any vendor dependency. With Kubernetes, APISIX deployment is automated via Helm charts and the APISIX Ingress Controller, reducing operational effort significantly.

The decision framework: If your team is small, your traffic is moderate (<100M requests/month), and you are all-in on AWS, the managed service simplifies operations. If you need multi-cloud portability, handle high traffic volumes, require custom plugins, or need to keep data on your infrastructure, API7 Enterprise provides APISIX with enterprise-grade management.

AWS API Gateway charges $1.00 per million requests for HTTP APIs and $3.50 per million for REST APIs, plus data transfer fees. At low traffic this is affordable, but costs escalate rapidly. At 1 billion requests/month, you pay $1,000–$3,500/month for the gateway alone — before Lambda execution, data transfer, and CloudWatch logging costs. At 10 billion requests, that is $10K–$35K/month.

APISIX running on your own infrastructure has fixed compute costs regardless of request volume. A single APISIX node on a 4-core machine handles ~92,000 QPS — over 238 billion requests/month — for the cost of that one VM. The crossover point where self-hosted APISIX becomes cheaper than AWS API Gateway is typically around 100-500 million requests/month, depending on your cloud compute costs.

API7 Enterprise uses CPU-core-based pricing that is predictable and scales with your infrastructure, not your traffic. For high-traffic APIs, this is typically 5-10x cheaper than AWS API Gateway's per-request model while providing more features and zero vendor lock-in.

AWS API Gateway has a default regional throttle limit of 10,000 requests per second (adjustable via support request). Latency is typically 20-100ms p99 for REST APIs, which includes the managed service overhead. Cold starts on Lambda backends add additional latency. You cannot tune the gateway infrastructure — scaling is automatic but bounded by AWS limits and your account's throttling configuration.

Apache APISIX delivers 23,000 QPS per core with 0.2ms average latency in published benchmarks. Scaling is linear — add more nodes for more throughput with no provider-imposed throttle limits. Configuration changes propagate via etcd in milliseconds without performance degradation. You have full control over connection pooling, keepalive, buffer sizes, and worker processes.

For latency-sensitive APIs (real-time, gaming, financial services) or high-throughput services (10K+ RPS), APISIX provides dramatically better performance characteristics. AWS API Gateway is better suited for moderate-traffic APIs where the convenience of zero infrastructure management outweighs the performance overhead.

AWS API Gateway creates deep vendor lock-in. API configurations use AWS-specific formats (OpenAPI extensions, CloudFormation templates). Authentication relies on IAM roles and Cognito. Backend integrations are Lambda-centric. Observability is CloudWatch-bound. Migrating away from AWS API Gateway means rewriting authorization logic, backend integrations, deployment pipelines, and monitoring — a significant engineering effort.

Apache APISIX is completely portable. The same APISIX configuration runs identically on AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem data centers, and edge locations. Plugins use open standards (JWT, OAuth2, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus). There are no proprietary APIs or cloud-specific extensions. If you decide to migrate clouds or go hybrid, your API gateway configuration moves with you unchanged.

For organizations pursuing multi-cloud strategy, hybrid cloud deployment, or data sovereignty requirements that mandate self-hosted infrastructure, APISIX is the clear choice. AWS API Gateway is appropriate when your architecture is fully committed to AWS and the convenience of managed services outweighs portability concerns.

Choose AWS API Gateway if you are building a serverless application on AWS with Lambda backends, have moderate traffic (<500M requests/month), want zero infrastructure management, and are comfortable with AWS lock-in. AWS API Gateway excels for rapid prototyping, internal APIs, and teams without dedicated platform engineering resources.

Choose Apache APISIX if you need multi-cloud or hybrid deployment, handle high traffic volumes where per-request pricing is expensive, require custom plugins or multi-language extensibility, need sub-millisecond latency, or must retain full data sovereignty. APISIX is the best choice for platform teams that need control over their API infrastructure.

Choose API7 Enterprise when you want APISIX performance and portability with enterprise management — visual dashboard, FIPS 140-2, RBAC, audit logging, and commercial support. API7 reduces the operational burden of self-hosting while maintaining zero vendor lock-in. Contact API7 for a cost comparison against your current AWS API Gateway spend.