A Real-World API Gateway Decision: Inside the Technical Evaluation Process

A leading U.S.-based technology company, whose customer base includes over 60% of the Fortune 500, recently made a strategic decision to adopt Apache APISIX as their API gateway. The company operates in a complex, global environment and supports a large-scale multi-cloud architecture.

As the PMC Chair of Apache APISIX, I had the opportunity to speak directly with the company's Chief Architect, who walked me through their evaluation process and the reasoning behind their decision.

Their story offers a real-world blueprint for how enterprise architects can evaluate API gateways—not only based on features, but also on maintainability, flexibility, and long-term architectural alignment.

1. Strategic Commitment to Open Source — with Commercial Backing

A key driver for the company was the desire to avoid vendor lock-in and retain full control over their API infrastructure. As the architect put it:

"We need to ensure we can self-maintain our platform and reduce the risk of future changes in commercial relationships."

Apache APISIX, being an open-source project under the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), provides a strong governance model, transparent roadmap, and long-term sustainability. The ASF's neutral, meritocratic structure was a critical reassurance for the team.

At the same time, the team emphasized rigor in evaluating open source choices. They conducted an extensive review of Apache APISIX's source code, plugin implementation, and performance test results. Much of this information was available openly on GitHub and through detailed documentation, which made deep technical validation possible even before a single line of integration code was written.

Yet, open source alone is not enough. Enterprises need the option of commercial-grade support—especially for:

• Stability of core components
• Business continuity under production workloads
• High traffic processing and low-latency expectations

By combining open source flexibility with commercial options, Apache APISIX allowed the company to build confidently on an open foundation without compromising supportability.

2. Multi-Cloud Strategy Demands Flexible Gateways

Modern enterprises rarely operate in a single cloud. The company's architecture team was clear: multi-cloud flexibility was non-negotiable. This introduced three key requirements:

• Cost agility: Flexibly adjust infrastructure spend across cloud providers
• Customer-specific deployments: Tailor solutions to different geographies and compliance zones
• Performance compatibility: Ensure consistent latency and throughput across environments

Apache APISIX offers native support for multi-cloud and Kubernetes, giving architects the freedom to run the gateway wherever needed—with consistent configurations and behaviors. Its compatibility with the Kubernetes ecosystem was a deciding factor.

3. The Core Competitive Edge: A Plugin System Designed for Extensibility and Customization

A key technical differentiator in the decision-making process was the flexibility and maturity of the Apache APISIX plugin system.

The team conducted a detailed review of APISIX's open-source plugins—close to 100 in total—and found extensive examples and real-world patterns readily available via GitHub and official documentation. This enabled faster onboarding, safer experimentation, and clearer paths to production.

"We wanted a gateway that can grow with us—not a black box," the architect explained.

When it came to custom plugin development, Apache APISIX offered one significant architectural edge: its plugin system is built on Lua and supports dynamic hot-reloading—new plugins can be loaded or modified at runtime without recompiling or restarting the gateway.

This stands in contrast with several other gateway products that require full redeployment or binary-level extension mechanisms, which increases operational complexity and downtime risks.

In the words of the company's Chief Architect:

"We needed a plugin system that didn't get in the way of iteration. With APISIX, the cost of change is low, and the flexibility is high."

The ability to make safe, incremental changes—without sacrificing gateway stability—was a key contributor to the final decision.

4. Cost-Effective, Resource-Efficient Performance

While flexibility and extensibility were critical, so was efficiency. Apache APISIX impressed the team with:

• High performance and low resource footprint
• Lower total cost of ownership compared to heavyweight alternatives
• Architecture-agnostic deployment for both edge and internal traffic management

In internal testing, Apache APISIX consistently met demanding latency and throughput benchmarks. The fact that performance testing results and methodology were transparently available gave the team added confidence.

Conclusion: Rethinking API Gateway Decisions from an Architectural Lens

For enterprise architects, the choice of API gateway is no longer just a tool decision—it shapes scalability, security, and developer agility. The experience of this Fortune 500-focused technology company underscores what modern API infrastructure should look like:

• Open and extensible
• Cloud-agnostic and Kubernetes-native
• Plugin-driven and governance-friendly
• Technically transparent and reviewable
• Commercially supportable, yet free from lock-in

Apache APISIX is not only a high-performance API gateway. It's a strategic platform for teams that want to move fast, stay compliant, and evolve at scale.