Apigee or Gravitee: when a full self-hosted API product fits
Choose Gravitee when you want one self-hosted product that covers the gateway, the Console for administrators and the Portal for developers. Choose Apigee when you accept Google-operated management and want its analytics and monetization. A team facing an Apigee renewal, a call-based cost rise or a residency rule should first ask whether it needs the whole API product replaced or only the runtime. If the goal is a single platform the organization operates itself, Gravitee is the closer fit. If the goal is to keep Google's management plane and reduce only the data path, Apigee hybrid may be the simpler step.
The decision turns first on which Enterprise Edition features are required. Gravitee's Community Edition is self-hosted, but the Enterprise Edition requires a license and adds Kafka, MQTT5, RabbitMQ, Solace and JMS endpoints, audit trails of API consumption and activity, data masking, GeoIP filtering, the enterprise policy pack and Redis caching. Build a list of the Apigee policies, event integrations and audit reports you use today, then mark each one as Community, Enterprise or custom work. The Gravitee Enterprise Edition documentation is the reference for that mapping. Confirm current feature availability with Gravitee before you rely on it in a quote.
The second question is where the data must sit and who will run the platform. Gravitee documents SaaS, hybrid and fully self-hosted deployment for Enterprise customers, so a residency rule can often be met by keeping the gateway and data stores in your own cloud account or data center. Apigee hybrid leaves the runtime on your Kubernetes but keeps the management plane with Google, which may not satisfy the same rule. Name the team that will operate upgrades, backups, certificates and on-call support for the gateway, the management backend and the portal. That staffing answer, more than the license line, usually decides whether a self-hosted product stays affordable over several years.
Which option fits which scenario
This table maps common buying scenarios to the option that fits better, with the reason for each choice. Read each row against your own constraints, since the better fit depends on where data must live, which event protocols you need, and how much platform staff you can staff.
| Scenario | Better fit | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Data must stay fully inside your own infrastructure | Gravitee (self-hosted) | Gravitee's Community Edition is self-hosted, and Enterprise supports fully self-hosted deployment. Confirm which features you need from the Enterprise license before committing. |
| Kafka, MQTT, JMS or RabbitMQ event endpoints required | Gravitee Enterprise Edition | Gravitee lists these event endpoints, plus SSE and webhook entrypoints, as Enterprise features. Apigee does not need to be the default here, but confirm endpoint coverage in writing with Gravitee. |
| Team wants only a bare, high-performance gateway | Apache APISIX or Kong Gateway OSS | A full management product adds components you may not use. Gravitee bundles a gateway, management API, Console and Portal, so a bare gateway may be the leaner choice. |
| Team has an Apigee hybrid contract today | Stay on Apigee hybrid for now | Moving proxies, portals and analytics has a cost of its own. Keep hybrid until you have a tested migration plan and a clear reason to leave. |
| Team needs a built-in developer portal and API catalog | Gravitee (Community or Enterprise) | Gravitee's Portal UI provides a catalog of APIs with documentation, which covers the portal role without a separate build. |
| Team has no dedicated platform staff | Gravitee SaaS or a managed partner | Gravitee documents SaaS deployment on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Self-hosting still needs people to run upgrades, backups and monitoring, so price that staffing before choosing self-hosted. |
Where the data and control sit in each model
Apigee and Gravitee both offer managed and self-run options, but the split between the control plane and the gateway differs, and that split decides where traffic, configuration and audit records live. The cards below separate those layers so a team can map each one to its own data residency, identity and audit requirements before choosing a model.
Apigee managed and hybrid models
In Google-managed Apigee, Google runs the management and runtime planes, so API traffic and configuration live in Google's environment. Apigee hybrid moves the runtime plane onto your Kubernetes clusters while Google keeps the management plane. Confirm with Google which management data still leaves your network in hybrid, and which regions host it, before you map your residency obligations.
Apigee Edge for Private Cloud
Edge for Private Cloud is the fully customer-run Apigee option, so the team operates the data and management components on its own infrastructure. Its version line has a fixed end of life: 4.53.01 reaches end of life on June 30, 2027, and continuous support requires staying within the 18-month full support window. Plan the upgrade or migration path against that date in your change calendar.
Gravitee Cloud SaaS and hybrid
Gravitee documents SaaS, hybrid and fully self-hosted deployment for Enterprise customers. In a SaaS setup, the gateway and management data depend on Gravitee Cloud on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, so ask which region and sub-processors handle logs and analytics. In hybrid, the gateway can run in your environment while the management layer stays with Gravitee. Get that split in writing for each data type.
Gravitee fully self-hosted and Community
The Community Edition is self-hosted, and Enterprise customers can also run APIM fully self-hosted. With the Helm chart or Docker Compose with MongoDB, the gateway, management API, Console and Portal all sit in your infrastructure, and you control the database, backups and retention. Confirm which Enterprise features, such as audit trails, are needed, because they are not part of the Community Edition.
Identity and access control
Compare how each model integrates with your identity provider for administrators and developers. Check whether the Console and Portal can use your single sign-on, how administrator roles are assigned, and whether Dynamic Client Registration, an Enterprise feature, changes who can create API credentials. Document the answers so access reviews can cover both platforms.
Audit evidence and compliance readiness
Audit trails of API consumption and activity are listed as Enterprise Edition features in Gravitee, so Community deployments need a separate logging plan. For Apigee, confirm which logs Google retains in managed or hybrid models and which you export. DeployOpen can prepare controls, configuration and evidence for your compliance assessment, but independent auditors issue any attestation or certification.
What the Enterprise license changes in practice
The Community Edition of Gravitee API Management is Apache-2.0 licensed and self-hosted, so the gateway, management API, Console and Portal can run on your own infrastructure without a subscription. The Enterprise Edition requires a Gravitee license and adds a set of features that are not in the Community build. These include Kafka publish and subscribe over HTTP and WebSocket, Azure Service Bus, MQTT5, RabbitMQ, Solace and JMS endpoints, Server-Sent Events and webhook entrypoints, audit trails of API consumption and activity, data masking, GeoIP filtering, Dynamic Client Registration, the enterprise policy pack, the Alert Engine, Redis caching, Cloud Reporter, and Agent-to-Agent, LLM and MCP proxies.
The practical effect is that the Community Edition may cover your core API publishing and consumption, while a specific messaging endpoint, an audit requirement or a data masking rule can be the item that triggers a license. Start by writing down every feature your APIs need today and the ones planned for the next renewal cycle, including any Kafka or RabbitMQ backed APIs and any policies you currently rely on in Apigee. Then ask Gravitee, in writing, which edition covers each item, and whether it is available in SaaS, hybrid or fully self-hosted deployment. Treat the answers as the input to your license quote, not as an assumption from the feature list.
Plan for the Enterprise license as a recurring cost that sits alongside your infrastructure and staffing, and ask what the license covers, how it is priced, how it is renewed and what happens to features already in use if the license lapses. Confirm the answers against the current Gravitee Enterprise Edition documentation and your own test environment, since feature availability can change between releases.
How Apigee and Gravitee costs are structured
Apigee is sold as a commercial subscription, and its pricing structure is set in the contract rather than in public list prices on this page. The main cost drivers are the volume of API calls, the number of environments you provision, optional add-ons such as analytics or monetization, and the support level you buy. Most of these recur annually or monthly, so the total cost of ownership grows with traffic and with the number of environments your release process needs.
- Call-based pricing: Charges typically scale with the number of API calls processed, so growth in traffic raises the bill even when the feature set stays the same.
- Environments: Each environment you need for development, testing, staging and production may carry its own charge, which affects teams with many release stages.
- Add-ons: Analytics, monetization and portal capabilities may be licensed separately from the core platform, so confirm which ones your use case needs.
- Support: Support tiers are a recurring line item that determines response expectations and access to the vendor during incidents.
- Deployment model: Hybrid and managed options shift which infrastructure you pay for and which Google-operated components you depend on.
Ask the vendor to state the call basis, the billing unit for each environment, every add-on by name, and the support tier in writing, along with the renewal and overage terms.
Gravitee has two editions that carry different cost profiles. The Community Edition of API Management is Apache-2.0 licensed and self-hosted, so the software itself carries no license fee, but you own the infrastructure, operations and any support arrangement. The Enterprise Edition requires a Gravitee Enterprise License, and that license is the recurring commercial line you negotiate with the vendor, covering features such as the event endpoints, audit trails and the enterprise policy pack.
- Community self-hosting: The software is free to use under Apache-2.0, so cost moves to hosting, staff time and any third-party support you choose.
- Enterprise license: Required for features such as audit trails, event endpoints and the enterprise policy pack, and typically recurring, so confirm the term and renewal basis.
- Deployment choice: SaaS, hybrid and fully self-hosted options are documented for Enterprise customers, and each option changes who pays for compute and operations.
- Infrastructure: Kubernetes or Docker Compose hosting, databases and monitoring are costs you carry in every self-hosted model.
- Implementation and staff: Configuration, migration and ongoing operations need people with API gateway and Kubernetes skills, whether internal or contracted.
Ask Gravitee which features are covered by the license, what the license basis is, and whether support, upgrades and named environments are included before comparing with Apigee.
Infrastructure and staffing costs apply to both platforms when you run them yourself, and they are often the largest line in a self-hosted comparison. Compute, storage, networking, backup and monitoring recur every month, while the initial build, configuration and migration are one-time costs. The cost of each runtime depends on your traffic profile, your availability targets and how many environments you operate.
- Compute and storage: Sizing depends on peak traffic, latency targets and the number of environments, and it recurs as long as the platform runs.
- High availability: Running redundant nodes, databases and load balancing adds to the baseline for production workloads.
- Operations staff: Patching, upgrades, incident response and capacity planning consume engineering time every month.
- Backup and disaster recovery: Backup storage, restore testing and recovery runbooks are recurring work that should be costed explicitly.
- Security tooling: Logging, secrets handling and vulnerability scanning for the gateway add cost in either model.
Ask for an estimate of compute sizing, staffing hours by role and the ongoing operations plan, and compare these figures against the vendor quote rather than against list prices alone.
A useful quote for either platform lists every component separately so you can compare like with like. Vendor subscriptions, infrastructure, implementation, support and internal staff time should each appear as their own line with the basis of charge stated. Without this breakdown, a lower headline figure can hide costs that appear later in renewals, overage charges or added environments.
- Recurring versus one-time: Separate license or subscription fees, infrastructure, and support from migration and implementation work.
- Volume basis: State the metric used for billing, such as calls, environments, nodes or named users.
- Feature coverage: List which capabilities are included, including event endpoints, audit trails and analytics, and which are extra.
- Deployment scope: Confirm whether the quote covers SaaS, hybrid or self-hosted operation, and who runs the control plane.
- Term and renewal: Record the contract length, renewal price basis and any overage or true-up terms.
Before signing either quote, confirm the license scope, the billing unit and the support commitment in writing, and build a three-year model that uses the same traffic and environment assumptions for both platforms.
Cost components, one-time and recurring
Cost of moving from Apigee to Gravitee sits in a few components, some paid once and some every year. Read each card against your own contract, traffic and team, because the largest line items depend on call volume, deployment model and how much portal and analytics work you take on.
Apigee call-based and environment charges
Apigee pricing is tied to usage and deployment, so the recurring cost depends on call volume, the number of environments and the add-ons you buy, such as analytics or monetization. Ask your Google Cloud account team to break the current contract into per-call, environment and subscription lines, and confirm which of these end at your renewal date. Model each line at your peak and average monthly volume, not only the figure on the current invoice.
Gravitee licensing and Enterprise features
The Community Edition is Apache-2.0 and self-hosted, but several features need a Gravitee Enterprise License, including audit trails, event endpoints such as Kafka and MQTT5, and the enterprise policy pack. The Enterprise Edition requires a license, so this is a recurring subscription to price per feature you actually need. Map your Apigee policies and reporting needs to that list before you request a quote, because a missing feature changes the recurring cost more than any infrastructure choice.
Deployment model and hosting
Gravitee supports SaaS, hybrid and fully self-hosted deployment for Enterprise customers, and the Community Edition runs self-hosted with Docker Compose or the Helm chart. Each model moves a different share of cost: infrastructure you pay for yourself in a self-hosted setup, or a subscription that covers hosting in SaaS. Confirm with Gravitee which model and support tier fit your data residency requirement, and price the Kubernetes clusters, databases and load balancers that a self-hosted setup needs.
Kubernetes and operations staffing
Running a self-hosted gateway means someone patches the platform, rotates certificates, upgrades the Helm chart and watches capacity. This is a recurring internal cost whose size depends on how many environments you run and how often you upgrade. Compared with Apigee, where Google operates the managed control plane, you take on that operating time. Estimate it in engineer hours per month for your own team, and check it against the upgrade cadence in the Gravitee release tags.
Migration and portal rebuild
Migration is mostly one-time work: exporting proxies, mapping API products and apps to Gravitee plans and subscriptions, rewriting policies that do not carry over, and rebuilding the developer portal content and approval flows. Analytics that Apigee provided as an add-on may need extra reporting work in Gravitee's Enterprise features, such as Cloud Reporter. Ask for a fixed-scope estimate that lists each proxy and API product, the portal pages to rebuild and the reports you need on day one.
Support and parallel running
Apigee support is part of the Google Cloud contract, while Gravitee support depends on the Enterprise tier you buy, and the Community Edition relies on public channels and your own staff. During migration you pay for two sets of infrastructure while traffic moves environment by environment. Confirm response times, the escalation path and the length of the parallel run in writing, since both drive the one-time cost and the ongoing risk.
What moving from Apigee to Gravitee involves
The sequence turns Apigee proxies, products and portal content into a Gravitee configuration that runs beside the current estate, then cuts traffic over one environment at a time. Each step ends with a check the team can verify before the next one starts.
Inventory proxies, products and consumers
Build a complete list of API proxies, shared flows, API products, developer apps, keys and quotas across every Apigee organization and environment. Assign an owner to each item and mark which APIs carry live traffic, which are internal, and which are scheduled for retirement. Your architects and API product owners do this work, with the platform team confirming environment boundaries. The step is done when every proxy and product has a named owner and a traffic classification, and the list has been reviewed against the Apigee console and management API output.
Export proxy bundles and configuration
Export proxy revisions, shared flows, target server definitions, key value map entries and product configuration from each environment so you hold a copy that does not depend on the live Apigee tenant. Store the exports in version control with the environment they came from. The platform engineers who hold Apigee administrator rights run this step. The step is done when every exported bundle can be opened, its revision number matches the console, and the exports are stored under change control.
Map products and plans to Gravitee
Translate Apigee API products into Gravitee APIs with plans and subscriptions, and map Apigee developer apps and their credentials to Gravitee applications. Record which quotas, approval rules and access scopes carry over directly and which need a different model. Review the design with the API product owners and the security team. The step is done when a written mapping table lists each Apigee product, its Gravitee equivalent, and any plan or subscription behavior that differs.
Rewrite policies and assess custom policies
Go through each Apigee policy in the exported proxies and classify it as a direct equivalent in Gravitee, a configuration change, or a gap that needs a custom policy or an Enterprise Edition feature. Check the Gravitee policy documentation and your license scope before committing to a design, since some capabilities sit in the Enterprise Edition. Gateway engineers do the rewrite, and the security team reviews authentication and data-handling policies. The step is done when every Apigee policy has a documented disposition and each gap has an owner and a decision on Community or Enterprise.
Rebuild the developer portal content
Move API documentation, specifications, onboarding pages and subscription workflows into the Gravitee Portal UI and confirm that developers can discover APIs, register applications, and request access under the approval flows your organization requires. Decide early whether any Apigee portal content must be retained for records. Developer relations and the API product owners own content, and the platform team owns the portal configuration. The step is done when a pilot group of internal developers has completed registration and subscription in a non-production portal.
Run Gravitee in parallel and test
Deploy the Gravitee gateway, management backend and Console in a non-production environment, import the rewritten APIs, and run functional, security and load tests against the same backends used by Apigee. Compare responses, headers, throttling behavior and error handling between the two gateways. Your QA and security engineers run the tests and record deviations. The step is done when the test report shows no unresolved differences in authentication, quota enforcement or responses that consumers depend on.
Cut over one environment at a time
Move traffic environment by environment, starting with the lowest-risk environment and keeping Apigee as the fallback until each environment has run cleanly. Update DNS, client endpoints or upstream routing in steps, and monitor latency, error rates and consumer complaints during each window. Operations and the API product owners approve each cutover. The step is done when every environment serves traffic through Gravitee, rollback paths have been tested, and the Apigee configuration is archived for audit purposes.
Questions buyers ask before choosing Gravitee or Apigee
What does a switch from Apigee to Gravitee cost, and what drives it?
The cost depends mostly on how many proxies, policies, products, developer accounts and environments you move, and how much of your Apigee logic is custom. Expect costs in three groups: software, implementation labor, and the people who run the platform afterward. Gravitee Community Edition is Apache-2.0 licensed, so the software line is zero for that edition, but Enterprise features require a Gravitee Enterprise License, and that subscription is the main recurring software cost to price. On the Apigee side, ask for your current call-based and environment charges so you can compare them with your own volumes. Ask any quote to split one-time migration work from recurring hosting, licensing and support.
How long does a migration from Apigee to Gravitee take?
Duration depends on scope rather than on the platform alone. The main drivers are the number of API products and plans to recreate, how many policies need rewriting into Gravitee policies or custom code, how many consumers must move without downtime, and how many environments sit between development and production. Gravitee documents Enterprise deployment as SaaS, hybrid or fully self-hosted, so the deployment choice also shapes the plan. Ask any partner to list the proxies in scope, the Enterprise features you need, and the cutover approach per environment before agreeing a timeline in writing.
What must our internal team provide during the migration?
Your team owns the business decisions and the operational knowledge that no tool can recover. Typical inputs include an inventory of Apigee proxies and shared flows, the API product and app registration model, the consumers and their onboarding rules, quota and security requirements, and the identity provider used for developer access. Your engineers also need to supply access to the Apigee organization, the target Kubernetes or VM environment, and a named owner for approvals and cutover windows. Without these inputs, scope grows during the project, so confirm each item before work starts.
Can we migrate from Apigee to Gravitee without outside help?
Yes, a capable platform team can do it internally, provided it has time, Kubernetes or infrastructure experience, and someone who knows the Apigee policies in use. Gravitee publishes Docker Compose and Helm options, so a small pilot is practical to build in-house. Outside help tends to pay off where policies are heavily customized, where compliance evidence must be produced, or where cutover must happen across many consumers at once. DeployOpen plans and implements self-hosted platforms in your own infrastructure under a written, fixed scope, and it can also run ongoing support as a retainer.
Do we need Gravitee's Enterprise features to replace Apigee?
Only if your current Apigee estate depends on capabilities that Gravitee lists as Enterprise features. Community Edition covers the gateway, management API, Console and Portal, so many API management needs can be met without a license. Enterprise adds event endpoints such as Kafka, MQTT5, RabbitMQ and JMS, Server-Sent Events and webhook entrypoints, audit trails of API consumption and activity, data masking, GeoIP filtering, Dynamic Client Registration, the enterprise policy pack, the Alert Engine, Redis caching, and Agent-to-Agent, LLM and MCP proxies. Map each Apigee policy and analytics requirement against this list, then confirm licensing terms directly with Gravitee.
How does the Apigee Edge for Private Cloud end of life affect our timing?
If you run Apigee Edge for Private Cloud 4.53.01, which was first released on August 26, 2025, Apigee documentation states that the version reaches end of life on June 30, 2027. After that date Apigee stops providing bug fixes, security updates, hotfixes or patches for that line. Continuous support also requires running a version within its 18-month full support window. That deadline sets the outer limit for your migration, so count back from June 30, 2027 to fix your decision point, the pilot, the production cutover and a rollback window. Confirm your exact version and support entitlement with Apigee before planning.
What security and compliance work comes with the move?
The gateway itself is a security boundary, so you must re-establish authentication, authorization, rate limits, TLS settings, secrets handling and logging in the new platform before cutover. Map each control your auditors currently rely on to a Gravitee configuration or an operational procedure, and record the evidence. DeployOpen prepares systems, controls and evidence for compliance assessments, but it does not issue audit reports, attestations or certifications; independent auditors and certification bodies do that work. Ask your auditor which controls they will test and when.
How to shortlist before a renewal
Start by building the inventory you will need in any case. Export every Apigee API proxy revision, shared flow, API product, developer app and environment configuration, and record which proxies carry traffic and which are dormant. Gravitee's model maps APIs to plans and subscriptions, so the inventory should show which products are consumed by which applications and under which quota or authentication method. Next, list the Enterprise Edition features your current estate actually depends on, such as audit trails of API consumption, event endpoints for Kafka or MQTT, data masking, GeoIP filtering or the enterprise policy pack. Mark each one as required, convenient or unused. Any item marked required needs a written answer from Gravitee on whether it is covered by the license you would buy, because Gravitee's documentation states that the Enterprise Edition requires a license.
Set your data residency and deployment requirements before you talk to any vendor. Decide whether the gateway, the management API and the Portal database must stay in your own data centers or cloud accounts, which rules out SaaS unless the contract and region meet your policy. Gravitee documents SaaS, hybrid and fully self-hosted deployment for Enterprise customers and a self-hosted Community Edition, so ask which of these models your required feature set supports. Then pilot one API family end to end: import its policies by hand, publish it to the Portal, onboard one consuming application and measure latency and error behavior through the gateway. A pilot of one family shows more than a slide deck, and it gives you the effort estimate that a quote should be built on.
Request written quotes that separate the cost components. Ask for license fees for each Enterprise feature you named, support tiers, the number of environments and gateway nodes covered, and whether pricing is per deployment, per node or per volume. Ask what recurs annually and what is a one-time implementation cost, and whether a renewal price cap applies. Compare the Apigee renewal quote against the same scope, including your own infrastructure, the Portal work and the staff who will run it. Keep the Apigee renewal open as a fallback until the pilot results and the written quotes are in hand, because an earlier decision leaves you no leverage on either side.
How DeployOpen helps evaluate, implement or migrate
DeployOpen plans, implements, hardens and documents self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own cloud accounts, data centers or air-gapped networks. For Apigee vs Gravitee, we start with a written scope that matches your APIs, deployment model and Enterprise Edition requirements, then build and hand over a Gravitee environment you run yourself.
How we scope
- Inventory your Apigee API proxies, products, apps and portal content before comparing features.
- Map which needs sit in Gravitee Community and which need an Enterprise license, such as audit trails or event endpoints.
- Agree deployment model in writing: self-hosted, hybrid or Gravitee-hosted SaaS, with data location stated.
How we build
- Deploy the Gravitee gateway, management backend, Console and Portal with Helm on Kubernetes or Docker Compose.
- Rebuild plans, subscriptions and access rules in Gravitee, then test each one against the original Apigee behavior.
- Test performance, failover and security controls in a staging environment before any traffic moves.
How we hand over
- Deliver architecture records, configuration exports, runbooks and a list of policies that needed rewriting or custom work.
- Document the upgrade path for the Gravitee release line you deploy, including how new tags are assessed.
- Train your platform and operations staff to manage APIs, keys and the Portal without DeployOpen in the loop.
How we support
- Engagements are fixed-scope, so scope, deliverables and timelines are agreed in writing before work starts.
- Ongoing upgrades, backups, continuous testing and support are available as a retainer.
- Ask for a written quote based on your scope, since DeployOpen does not publish a price list.
