Microsoft Azure → Amazon Web Services
AWS equivalent of Azure API Management
The closest AWS equivalents of Azure API Management are Amazon API Gateway, AWS AppSync and Amazon VPC Lattice.
About Azure API Management
| Provider | Microsoft Azure |
|---|---|
| Status | Generally available |
| What it is | API gateway, developer portal, and management plane (policies, products, subscriptions, versioning) for REST, SOAP, GraphQL, WebSocket, and gRPC APIs. Includes AI gateway features. Tiers are Consumption, Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium, and v2 tiers. |
| Documentation | learn.microsoft.com |
| Pricing | Official pricing page |
AWS mappings (3)
| Capability | AWS equivalent | Match |
|---|---|---|
| Managed API gateway | Amazon API Gateway | Partial match |
| Managed GraphQL and real-time pub/sub APIs | AWS AppSync | Partial match |
| Service-to-service application networking | Amazon VPC Lattice | Partial match |
APIs & web front ends(2)
Managed API gateway Partial match
Amazon API Gateway maps to Azure API Management. API Management is a fuller API management platform (developer portal, products, policies across many backends). API Gateway is a serverless front door that is especially tight with Lambda.
- API types. API Gateway offers REST APIs (usage plans, API keys, caching, request validation, private APIs), HTTP APIs (cheaper, simpler, JWT auth), and WebSocket APIs. API Management handles REST, SOAP, GraphQL, WebSocket, and gRPC, plus AI gateway policies for LLM APIs.
- Tiers. API Gateway is pay-per-request with no tiers. API Management has Consumption (serverless), Developer (no SLA), Basic/Standard/Premium (classic), and Basic v2/Standard v2/Premium v2.
- Developer portal. Built into API Management. API Gateway has none built in (AWS offers an open-source portal).
Managed GraphQL and real-time pub/sub APIs Partial match
AWS AppSync maps to two Azure services. API Management covers GraphQL (pass-through or synthetic GraphQL with resolvers), and Azure Web PubSub covers real-time WebSocket pub/sub (like AppSync Events).
- AppSync is a dedicated GraphQL engine with resolvers (JavaScript or VTL) for DynamoDB, Aurora, OpenSearch, Lambda, and HTTP, plus subscriptions, caching, and merged APIs. API Management's synthetic GraphQL uses resolver policies (for example HTTP data sources), and pass-through GraphQL fronts an existing GraphQL server.
- Real-time. AppSync GraphQL subscriptions and AppSync Events (channels over WebSockets). Web PubSub provides WebSocket and Socket.IO pub/sub with groups and serverless event handlers.
- Data API Builder (open source) and Microsoft Fabric GraphQL are other Azure options for GraphQL over databases.
Private access to services(1)
Service-to-service application networking Partial match
Microsoft states there's no single Azure equivalent of Amazon VPC Lattice. Depending on the scenario, combine Private Link (private access to services), Application Gateway for Containers (layer 7 routing for AKS), and API Management (centralized exposure and policy).
- VPC Lattice provides service networks that span VPCs and accounts, with IAM auth policies, layer 7 routing, and resource configurations for TCP resources such as databases. On Azure, those capabilities come from separate services you configure together.