API Gateway vs Load Balancer
Explain the differences between an API Gateway and a Load Balancer. When would you use each?
Solution Overview
API Gateways route requests, authenticate/authorize, rate-limit, and transform payloads. Request/response interceptors implement cross-cutting concerns. Circuit breakers protect backends. Caching reduces upstream load.
Architecture Pattern
Request router with middleware pipeline and backend pool management
Key Concepts
Used By Companies
API Gateways route requests, authenticate/authorize, rate-limit, and transform payloads. Request/response interceptors implement cross-cutting concerns. Circuit breakers protect backends. Caching reduces upstream load.
Consider the OSI model layers
Think about what happens to the request at each component
- •Kong
- •AWS API Gateway
- •Envoy
- •Routing
- •Middleware Pipeline
- •Circuit Breaker
- •Request Transformation
- •Rate Limiting
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