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Is an API Gateway functionally a super-set of a Load Balancer?

Shishir

Mar 4, 2024

The first chapter under "API Gateway" section clearly calls out that an API Gateway and a Load Balancer are different -

"An API gateway and a load balancer are both types of infrastructure that can be used in a computer network to manage incoming requests and enhance the performance of a system. However, they work in different ways and serve different purposes."

However, this chapter lists "Load Balancing" as one of the uses for an API Gateway.

Can you please elaborate on this? Does this mean that an API Gateway is a Load Balancer with routing, rate limiting, business logic, and other capabilities?

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Design Gurus
Design Gurus2 years ago

Yes, API Gateway can work as load balancer but it can do a lot more things than load balancer.

See this for more details: [https://www.designgurus.io/blog/load-balancer-reverse-proxy-api-gateway](https://www.designgurus.io/blog/load-balancer-reverse-proxy-api-gateway...

Alex M
Alex M10 months ago

I think one of the missing pieces in the API gateway articles is that load balancers can often sit in front of API gateways. An API gateway can load balance, but load balancers will be better at it. They're distinct, and I think these articles could easily delve into ...

Design Gurus
Design Gurus10 months ago

Yes, an API Gateway can include load-balancing functionality, but it is not simply “a load balancer with extra features.” They start from different design goals:

  • A load balancer cares about distributing traffic among servers, primarily for reliability and per...

On this page

Key Usages of API Gateways

  1. Request Routing
  1. Aggregation of Multiple Services
  1. Security Enforcement
  1. Load Balancing
  1. Caching Responses
  1. Protocol Translation
  1. Monitoring and Logging
  1. Transformation of Requests and Responses
  1. API Versioning
  1. Rate Limiting and Throttling
  1. API Monetization
  1. Service Discovery Integration
  1. Circuit Breaker Pattern Implementation
  1. Content-Based Routing
  1. SSL Termination
  1. Policy Enforcement
  1. Multi-Tenancy Support
  1. A/B Testing and Canary Releases
  1. Localization and Internationalization Support
  1. Reducing Client Complexity

Real-World Example: Netflix

Conclusion