Panel Discussion: API Security in DevSecOps. Watch the Recording

Panel Discussion: API Security in DevSecOps. Watch the Recording

Panel Discussion: API Security in DevSecOps. Watch the Recording

Top 10 API Discovery Tools

API Discovery Tools help organizations automatically identify, catalog, and manage their APIs, improving efficiency and visibility across multiple applications and services.

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Kruti

8 minutes

API Discovery Tools
API Discovery Tools
API Discovery Tools

Organizations use API Discovery Tools to recognize and handle Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) within their digital infrastructures. Finding the correct API can make or break a project to speed up development, add new features, or improve system integrations. Developers often find manually locating, assessing, and integrating APIs time-consuming and complex, leading to inefficiencies.

This blog explores API Discovery Tools or API Discovery vendors, their key features, different types, and top options available in the market.

What are API Discovery Tools?

API Discovery Tools are software solutions that help organizations automatically identify, catalog, and manage the APIs present within their systems. These tools provide visibility into all APIs, whether they are public, private, partner, or shadow APIs (undocumented or rogue APIs).

Their primary function is to ensure that organizations properly account for, document, and secure all APIs, especially in environments with API sprawl, where APIs may be spread across multiple applications and services.

Top 10 API Discovery Tools

  1. Akto – Comprehensive API Security and testing platform

  2. Cloudflare - Global Web Infrastructure and security company

  3. Postman – API development and testing tool with security features

  4. Wallarm - Integrated App and API Security Platform

  5. Boomi - Cloud-based Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

  6. Gravitee.io - Open-source API Management Platform

  7. Apigee - Comprehensive API Management Platform

  8. MuleSoft - Comprehensive Integration and API Management Solution

  9. WSO2 API Manager - Open-source API Management Platform

  10. Azure API Management - Hybrid, multi-cloud Management Platform for APIs

Let's explore some of the leading API discovery tools that can significantly enhance the organization's API management capabilities:

1. Akto

Akto is an API discovery and API security platform that enables organizations to monitor and secure APIs in real-time. While most API discovery tools concentrate on locating and testing APIs, Akto prioritizes API security by offering continuous API inventory and real-time vulnerability testing. It is for organizations working with microservices architectures and cloud-native settings, where API sprawl is a significant issue.

API Discovery tool

Key Benefits

  • Real-time API Inventory: It automatically detects all active APIs in an organization, including those that are not documented or hidden. This guarantees that security engineers have an accurate understanding of their API environment, lowering the possibility of missing APIs during development.

  • Enhanced Security: Akto effortlessly interfaces with CI/CD pipelines, enabling automated security testing during the development cycle. This helps to discover potential weaknesses early on, avoiding costly breaches in the future.

  • Faster Integration and Testing: By offering real-time monitoring and API security testing, It eliminates the need for separate manual testing, which accelerates the overall development and integration process.

Pricing

Akto pricing

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Akto offers flexible pricing plans to accommodate various organizational needs:

  • Free Plan: This plan is perfect for individuals or small teams looking to experiment with Akto's features or conduct light API security testing. It provides support for up to 25 API endpoints per month and allows 12,500 tests monthly. With limited scalability, this plan suits early-stage developers or organizations exploring API security without significant costs.

  • Professional Plan: Targeted at growing businesses with moderate API security needs, this plan costs $490 per month. It accommodates up to 100 API endpoints and allows up to 200,000 tests per month. This tier includes features that help automate API security processes for mid-sized teams, offering a balance between affordability and functionality.

  • Enterprise Plan: Designed for large-scale enterprises with complex and critical API security demands, this plan offers advanced customization options, enhanced scalability, and premium features. Although security engineers can request pricing for this plan, the plan is tailored to organizations that require extensive API testing capabilities and robust support.

2. Cloudflare

Cloudflare security

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Cloudflare is a global web infrastructure and security company that offers a range of services designed to improve the performance, security, and reliability of websites, applications, and APIs. Its platform serves millions of websites and provides tools like content delivery networks (CDN), DDoS protection, and internet security to protect and optimize digital assets. Among its many services, Cloudflare API Discovery is a powerful feature designed specifically to address API visibility and security.

Key Benefits of Cloudflare API Discovery

  • Real-time API Monitoring: Cloudflare tracks API usage in real-time, ensuring that all interactions are visible and monitored for potential issues. This continuous monitoring allows for immediate detection of anomalies or performance degradation.

  • Enhanced Security: Cloudflare automatically identifies and mitigates threats such as DDoS attacks and data breaches on APIs, ensuring secure API performance. The platform employs advanced machine learning algorithms to detect and block suspicious activities.

  • Performance Optimization: Cloudflare provides built-in optimizations to reduce latency and improve the overall speed of API responses. These optimizations include intelligent caching mechanisms that reduce the load on origin servers.

Pricing

Cloudflare pricing

Cloudflare offers a range of plans tailored to different needs, each with specific features and pricing structures:

  • Free Plan: This entry-level option provides essential services such as SSL, CDN, and DDoS protection, making it suitable for personal websites or blogs.

  • Pro Plan: Designed for professional websites and startups, the Pro Plan includes advanced security features and performance enhancements. As of January 15, 2023, Cloudflare sets the price of the Pro Plan at $25 per month. Cloudflare also offers an annual option for $240 per year, effectively reducing the monthly cost to $20.

  • Business Plan: Aimed at small e-commerce sites and organizations requiring advanced security and performance, the Business Plan offers additional features and support. The monthly cost is $250, with an annual payment option of $2,400, equating to $200 per month.

  • Enterprise Plan: Tailored for large organizations with specific needs, the Enterprise Plan provides customizable solutions. Pricing is available upon request, allowing for flexibility based on the organization's requirements.

Akto’s Recommendation

Cloudflare’s API discovery and threat mitigation tools focus on protecting against DDoS attacks and performance bottlenecks. However, Akto provides detailed runtime monitoring and risk scoring for APIs, offering more granular insights into vulnerabilities. This makes Akto a better fit for organizations seeking to address business logic vulnerabilities and hidden threats specific to APIs.

3. Postman

Postman API Platform

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Postman is a popular tool for API development, testing, and documentation. It has transformed from a simple testing utility to a comprehensive API development platform. Postman improves the effectiveness of security teams working on API-driven projects by providing features for collaboration and version control. The Postman API Network allows security engineers to discover and use public and private APIs published by others, giving a wide range of integration choices.

Key Benefits

  • Powerful API Testing: Postman offers powerful testing tools, allowing security engineers to carefully evaluate API requests and responses, ensuring APIs function properly and meet performance standards.

  • Collaboration and Sharing: Postman's collaboration tools allow security teams to effortlessly exchange API sets, environments, and test results, enhancing teamwork and decreasing identical efforts in API development.

  • Documentation: It provides complete API documentation that can be readily shared with internal teams or external developers, streamlining API use and reducing the need for manual documentation efforts.

Pricing

Postman pricing details

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Postman offers a range of pricing plans to accommodate various user needs:

  • Free Plan: Postman designed the Free Plan for individuals or small teams of up to three members, providing essential API testing features at no cost.

  • Basic Plan: At $14 per user per month (billed annually), this plan includes unlimited collaborators, cloud-based integrations, and increased limits on mock server and monitor requests.

  • Professional Plan: Priced at $29 per user per month (billed annually), it offers private workspaces, role-based access control, and additional packages for larger teams.

  • Enterprise Plan: For $49 per user per month (billed annually), this plan provides advanced security features, single sign-on (SSO), audit logs, and customer success support for organization-wide API development.

Akto’s Recommendation

Postman excels as a developer tool for organizing and testing APIs, with its API collections and documentation capabilities. However, unlike Postman, Akto automatically discovers undocumented and shadow APIs in real-time, providing a continuously updated inventory. This automated approach ensures security teams don’t overlook potential vulnerabilities from hidden endpoints, offering a more proactive stance on API visibility.

4. Wallarm

Wallarm API Discovery tool

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Wallarm is an API security platform that focuses on protecting APIs with real-time threat detection and prevention features. It combines API discovery, security analytics, and automated protection to safeguard digital assets.

Wallarm uses machine learning to continuously analyze traffic, detect malicious activities, and prevent security incidents. It is particularly useful for organizations seeking adaptive security solutions that evolve with their APIs and infrastructure changes.

Key Benefits

  • Comprehensive API Security: Wallarm provides continuous security for APIs by identifying potential vulnerabilities, malicious traffic, and anomalies in real-time. This proactive approach helps organizations stay ahead of emerging threats and maintain a robust security posture.

  • Real-time Threat Detection: Using machine learning, Wallarm detects and blocks threats automatically, ensuring APIs are protected against known and unknown attacks. The system continuously learns from new attack patterns, improving its detection capabilities over time.

  • Detailed Reporting: The platform offers detailed insights into API security, enabling organizations to prioritize remediation efforts based on the criticality of the threats detected. These reports also provide actionable recommendations, helping teams to efficiently address vulnerabilities and improve overall security.

Pricing

Wallarm offers a range of subscription plans tailored to different security needs:

  • WAAP and Advanced API Security This plan provides comprehensive protection for web applications and APIs against common threats such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and brute force attacks. It supports all API protocols and addresses specific API threats, including those outlined in the OWASP API Top 10. Features include real-time protection, DDoS mitigation, IP reputation feeds, virtual patching, and automated protection against Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA).

  • API Attack Surface Management (AASM) Designed to provide a comprehensive view of publicly exposed APIs, this agentless solution discovers external hosts and their APIs, identifies missing Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), and detects credential leaks. The number of external hosts determines the pricing, with the Core plan starting at $325 per month for 25 hosts. An Enterprise plan is available for larger requirements, offering extended support and additional services.

  • Security Edge This plan enables users to deploy the Wallarm node in a managed environment., eliminating the need for onsite installation and management. Wallarm handles node hosting and maintenance, providing robust traffic filtering, attack detection, and secure communication.

  • Free Tier Ideal for smaller organizations and educational purposes, the Free Tier account allows processing up to 500,000 requests per month with no time limitation. It provides access to the Wallarm platform's Advanced API Security features, excluding certain functionalities like Security Edge Inline and Connectors, exposed assets scanner, vulnerability assessment, and API Abuse Prevention. Users can create a Free Tier account on either the US or EU Wallarm Cloud.

Akto’s Recommendation

Both Wallarm and Akto integrate seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines for automated security testing. While Wallarm focuses on runtime protection and mitigation, Akto specializes in early vulnerability detection during the development cycle. Akto’s ability to map vulnerabilities to CWEs and CVEs gives development and security teams actionable insights, reducing the risk of false positives and streamlining the remediation process.

5. Boomi

Boomi API Management

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Boomi is a cloud-native Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) with a strong focus on API management, enabling organizations to create, deploy, and manage APIs seamlessly. Boomi empowers organizations to integrate applications, data, and devices while facilitating secure and efficient API lifecycle management. With its low-code approach and API Gateway, Boomi has become a preferred choice for organizations aiming to enhance their API-driven strategies.

Key Benefits

  • API Management

    Boomi simplifies the deployment, monitoring, and scaling of APIs through its intuitive API Gateway and developer portal. It provides robust tools for policy management, quota settings, and secure API traffic routing, making it easier for organizations to govern and optimize their APIs.

  • Comprehensive Integration

    With Boomi, organizations can connect their applications and data across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. This ensures seamless communication between systems and enhances the overall functionality of an organization's tech ecosystem.

  • Workflow Automation

    Boomi automates repetitive tasks and integrates the organization’s processes, reducing manual efforts and enhancing operational efficiency. This feature is particularly valuable for teams looking to streamline workflows and increase productivity.

  • Data Governance

    The platform offers powerful data preparation and master data management capabilities, enabling organizations to maintain high data quality and ensure compliance with data regulations.

Pricing

Boomi tool pricing

Boomi offers flexible pricing plans to accommodate various business integration needs. The primary subscription tiers include:

  • Base: Tailored for small organizations with basic integration requirements.

  • Professional: Designed for small organizations seeking enhanced integration capabilities.

  • Pro Plus: Suitable for mid-sized organizations with more extensive integration demands.

  • Enterprise: Geared towards large-scale organizations with multi-cloud integration needs.

  • Enterprise Plus: Intended for complex, high-volume enterprise integrations.

Reach out to Boomi for detailed pricing. For organizations seeking flexibility, Boomi also offers a Pay-As-You-Go model starting at $99 per month, allowing users to leverage the full platform without a long-term commitment.

6. Gravitee.io

Gravitee API management platform

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Gravitee.io is an open-source, event-native API management platform that facilitates the design, deployment, management, and security of both synchronous and asynchronous APIs throughout their entire lifecycle. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools tailored for modern API strategies, enabling organizations to effectively handle diverse API protocols and patterns.

Key Benefits

  • Unified API Management

    Gravitee.io provides a single platform to manage various API types, including REST, SOAP, WebSocket, and event-driven architectures. This unification simplifies operations and ensures consistent governance across all API interactions.

  • Flexible Deployment Options

    The platform supports various deployment models, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, allowing organizations to choose configurations that best align with their infrastructure and compliance requirements.

  • Event-Native Architecture

    Designed to support event-driven APIs, Gravitee.io enables organizations to expose event broker resources as APIs, facilitating real-time data streaming and integration with event-driven systems.

Pricing

Gravitee pricing details

Gravitee.io offers a tiered pricing structure to accommodate various organizational needs:

  • Planet: Priced at $2,500 per month, this package includes unlimited users, unlimited APIs under management, one production gateway, and gold support, making it ideal for smaller enterprise use cases.

  • Galaxy: Designed for higher volume requirements, this tier offers additional production gateways and enterprise plugins. Pricing details are provided upon request, allowing for customization based on specific needs.

  • Universe: Tailored for extensive enterprise requirements, this package provides unlimited users, APIs, production gateways, and comprehensive enterprise functionality. Pricing is customized to ensure cost-effectiveness for large-scale deployments.

7. Apigee

Apigee API imanagement platform

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Google Cloud developed Apigee as a comprehensive API management platform and designed it to facilitate the design, secure deployment, and scaling of APIs across various environments. It enables organizations to create, publish, and oversee APIs with robust security and performance capabilities, ensuring seamless integration between applications and services.

Key Benefits

  • API Design and Development

    Apigee provides tools for designing APIs that are consistent and easy to consume, allowing organizations to create APIs that meet their specific requirements.

  • Security

    Apigee offers comprehensive security features, including authentication, authorization, encryption, and threat protection, to safeguard APIs from unauthorized access and attacks.

  • Analytics and Monitoring

    The platform provides analytics to monitor API usage, track performance, and gain insights into how organizations utilize APIs, enabling data-driven decisions and optimizing API performance.

Pricing

Apigee pricing

Apigee, Google's API management platform, offers flexible pricing models to accommodate various organizational needs:

1. Evaluation Plan: This plan allows users to explore Apigee's capabilities at no cost for 60 days, providing a risk-free opportunity to assess the platform's features.

2. Pay-as-You-Go Pricing: Designed for flexibility, this model enables users to pay based on actual usage without upfront commitments. Key components include:

  • API Calls: The number and type of API calls determine the charges:

    • Standard API Proxy Calls: Lightweight proxies suitable for simple traffic, priced at $20 per million calls for up to 50 million calls, with reduced rates for higher volumes.

    • Extensible API Proxy Calls: Fully programmable proxies for complex transformations, starting at $100 per million calls for up to 50 million calls, with discounts at higher volumes.

  • Environments: Deployment environments bill per hour per region, with three tiers:

    • Base Environment: $365 per month per region, supporting up to 20 API proxies.

    • Intermediate Environment: $1,460 per month per region, allowing up to 50 API proxies or shared flows.

    • Comprehensive Environment: $3,431 per month per region, accommodating up to 100 API proxies or shared flows, with options for additional deployments.

  • Add-Ons: Optional features like API Analytics and Advanced API Security add for enhanced functionality, each with its own pricing structure.

3. Subscription Plans: For organizations with predictable workloads, Apigee offers subscription tiers:

  • Standard: Supports up to 1.25 billion Standard API Proxy calls or 250 million Extensible API Proxy calls annually, includes three environments, and offers a 99% SLA.

  • Enterprise: Accommodates up to 7.5 billion Standard API Proxy calls or 1.5 billion Extensible API Proxy calls per year, provides six environments, and ensures a 99.9% SLA.

  • Enterprise Plus: Designed for large-scale operations, it allows up to 75 billion Standard API Proxy calls or 15 billion Extensible API Proxy calls annually, includes 12 environments, and guarantees a 99.99% SLA.

Apigee subscription pricing

Akto’s Recommendation

Apigee, as a comprehensive API management platform, includes security features such as authentication and threat protection. However, Akto offers more in-depth vulnerability testing with over 200 built-in tests aligned with the OWASP API Top 10. Akto’s focus on proactive security ensures that APIs are secure before deployment, complementing Apigee’s broader management capabilities.

8. MuleSoft

MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform

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MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform is a comprehensive integration and API management solution that enables organizations to design, deploy, and manage APIs and integrations across various environments. By facilitating seamless connectivity between applications, data, and devices, Anypoint Platform supports organizations in building and managing APIs throughout their lifecycle.

Key Benefits

  • Unified API Management

    Anypoint Platform provides a centralized interface for designing, deploying, and managing APIs, ensuring consistent governance and security across all services. This unified approach simplifies API oversight and enhances operational efficiency.

  • Comprehensive Integration Capabilities

    The platform enables seamless integration of applications, data, and devices across on-premises and cloud environments. This flexibility allows organizations to connect diverse systems, facilitating efficient data exchange and streamlining the organization’s business processes.

  • Scalability and Flexibility

    MuleSoft's architecture supports various deployment options, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid models, allowing organizations to scale their integrations and APIs according to evolving needs. This adaptability ensures that the platform can grow alongside the organization.

Pricing

MuleSoft pricing details

MuleSoft offers a suite of products tailored to various integration and automation needs, with a significant emphasis on APIs.

Anypoint Platform

This comprehensive integration and API management solution is available in several editions:

  • Anypoint Integration Starter: Designed for organizations beginning their API and integration journey, this edition includes core features such as API design, management, deployment capabilities, and access to an asset marketplace for reuse. Pricing is customized based on specific organization’s needs.

  • Anypoint Integration Advanced: Building upon the Starter edition, this package offers advanced monitoring, log management, global multi-cloud deployment, clustering for high availability, and support for hybrid deployment models. Pricing is tailored to the organization's requirements.

  • API Management Solution: Focused on comprehensive API management, this solution provides full lifecycle API management, API standards enforcement, conformance, compliance with end-to-end API governance, and the ability to manage and secure APIs in any environment using Flex Gateway. Pricing is determined based on usage and specific needs.

9. WSO2 API Manager

WSO2 API manager

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WSO2 API Manager is a comprehensive, open-source platform designed for full lifecycle API management. It enables organizations to design, publish, and manage APIs across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, facilitating seamless integration and digital transformation.

Key Benefits

  • Full Lifecycle API Management

    WSO2 API Manager provides tools for designing, prototyping, developing, publishing, and retiring APIs, ensuring efficient management throughout their lifecycle.

  • Integration Capabilities

    The platform offers integration-first development, allowing users to expose integration services as managed APIs, thereby streamlining the creation of comprehensive API ecosystems.

  • Security and Access Control

    WSO2 API Manager supports various authentication mechanisms, including OAuth 2.0, API keys, and mutual SSL, ensuring secure API interactions and robust access control.

Pricing

WSO2 provides a suite of products and services tailored to diverse API management needs:

  • WSO2 API Manager: This core platform enables full lifecycle API management, allowing users to design, publish, and manage APIs across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid architectures.

  • WSO2 API Platform for Kubernetes (WSO2 APK): Designed for Kubernetes environments, this platform facilitates the deployment of lightweight, container-native data plane instances, streamlining API management within Kubernetes ecosystems.

  • Choreo: A low-code, cloud-native platform as a service (PaaS) that enables rapid building, deploying, and managing of APIs, services, and integrations. Choreo operates on Microsoft Azure and supports the creation of APIs with minimal coding effort.

10. Azure API Management

Azure API Management

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Azure API Management is a hybrid, multi-cloud platform designed to manage APIs across various environments. It enables organizations to securely publish, monitor, and analyze APIs, facilitating seamless integration between different services and applications.

Key Benefits

  • Comprehensive API Lifecycle Management

    Azure API Management supports the complete API lifecycle, including design, deployment, and maintenance. This holistic approach ensures that teams consistently monitor and update APIs, enhancing their reliability and performance.

  • Security and Compliance

    The platform offers robust security features such as authentication, authorization, and usage limits. These controls help protect data and services, ensuring compliance with organizational policies and industry standards.

  • Scalability and Flexibility

    Azure API Management is available in various tiers, each offering distinct features to meet different customer needs. This scalability allows organizations to choose a tier that aligns with their specific requirements and budget.

  • Developer Engagement

    The platform includes an open-source developer portal that provides automatically generated, customizable documentation of APIs. This feature enhances the developer experience by facilitating easy discovery and consumption of APIs.

Pricing

Azure API Management offers various pricing tiers to accommodate different organizational needs, each with distinct features and capacities. Here's an overview:

Azure API Management pricing
  • Consumption Tier: This serverless option is ideal for applications with variable traffic patterns. It incurs no fixed costs; they base billing on the number of API operations, with the first million operations included per subscription.

  • Developer Tier: Priced at approximately $48.04 per month, this tier is tailored for non-production use, such as evaluations and development. It doesn't offer a service-level agreement (SLA).

  • Basic Tier: Designed for entry-level production scenarios, the Basic tier is available at around $147.17 per month. It supports up to two units, with each additional unit costing 50% of the first unit's price.

  • Standard Tier: Suitable for medium-volume production environments, this tier costs approximately $686.72 per month. It allows scaling up to four units, with each additional unit at half the cost of the initial unit.

  • Premium Tier: Geared towards high-volume or enterprise-level production use, the Premium tier costs about $2,795.17 per month. It supports scaling beyond four units, with each extra unit priced at 50% of the first unit's cost.

Azure API Management Price
  • Basic v2 and Standard v2 Tiers: Introduced to enhance scalability and deployment speed, these tiers offer faster provisioning and scaling capabilities. The Basic v2 tier is suitable for development and testing, while Standard v2 caters to production workloads with support for network-isolated backends. Pricing details for these tiers are available on the Azure pricing page.

  • Premium v2 Tier: Currently in public preview, the Premium v2 tier provides enterprise features, including full virtual network isolation and higher scalability. Pricing and regional availability can be found on the Azure API Management pricing page.

Key Features of API Discovery Tools

API Discovery Tools offer several essential features that make them invaluable for organizations managing complex API ecosystems. Here are some of the key features:

1. Automated Discovery

Automated discovery is a core feature that continuously scans an organization’s networks to identify both public and private APIs. The process accounts for all endpoints, adapting to the dynamic nature of modern IT environments where APIs frequently change. This process minimizes human error and ensures accuracy.

2. Comprehensive Scanning

Effective API discovery tools conduct thorough scans to identify all APIs in use, including undocumented or shadow APIs. This comprehensive view helps organizations understand their entire API landscape.

3. Version Tracking

API discovery tools track different versions of APIs and alert administrators to deprecated versions that need updates. This feature is crucial for maintaining system integrity and ensuring backward compatibility.

4. Usage Analytics

These tools provide insights into how APIs are used, including access frequency and data transfer amounts. This information is vital for optimizing performance and identifying unusual or unauthorized access patterns that may indicate security breaches.

5. Dependency Mapping

API discovery tools create detailed maps of dependencies between various APIs and the applications that rely on them. This mapping is invaluable for troubleshooting and assessing the impact of changes to an API.

Types of API Discovery Tools

API discovery tools come in various types, each serving specific functions to help organizations manage their APIs effectively. Here are the main types of API discovery tools:

Automated API Scanners

These tools continuously scan networks and applications to automatically discover both known and undocumented APIs. They ensure complete visibility of all APIs in use, reducing the risks associated with shadow APIs. Automated scanners help organizations maintain an up-to-date API inventory and are crucial in identifying new or changed APIs.

API Security Platforms

These platforms focus on discovering APIs while also assessing their security vulnerabilities, such as weak authentication or exposed endpoints. By integrating with CI/CD pipelines, the platform performs security checks throughout the API lifecycle, helping to prevent security breaches early in the development process.

API Management Platforms

These platforms provide comprehensive lifecycle management for APIs, including discovery, security, and monitoring. They integrate version control,real-time monitoring, and security features, enabling organizations to manage APIs from development to deprecation effectively. API management tools ensure that they are both discoverable and secure.

Network Traffic Analysis Tools

These tools monitor network traffic to discover APIs by detecting communication patterns between services. They are particularly effective at identifying undocumented APIs or anomalies, such as unauthorized access, by analyzing traffic data. This helps ensure that they do not miss or expose any APIs to security risks.

API Documentation Generators

These tools automate the creation and updating of API documentation, making it easier for developers to understand and integrate APIs. By synchronizing with the API’s code or traffic, these tools ensure that documentation stays accurate, improving usability and reducing integration time.

Criteria for Selecting an API Discovery Tool

When choosing an API discovery vendor for your organization, several key factors need careful consideration to ensure it meets your specific requirements and integrates seamlessly with the existing infrastructure. Here are the essential criteria to evaluate:

1. Automation

The tool should automatically detect both documented and undocumented APIs across the organization's environment. This ensures full visibility of the API landscape, helping uncover shadow APIs and reducing manual efforts in discovery processes.

2. Integration Capabilities

It’s crucial for the tool to integrate seamlessly with the existing systems, such as CI/CD pipelines, monitoring platforms, and API security tools. This ensures smoother workflows and allows security teams to maintain consistent practices without adopting entirely new tools or workflows.

3. Security Features

The tool must include robust security features like vulnerability detection, compliance checks, and monitoring for unauthorized API access. These capabilities protect against potential risks and ensure adherence to organizational and regulatory security standards.

4. Ease of Use

A user-friendly interface with clear documentation and intuitive navigation reduces the learning curve. This helps security teams adopt the tool quickly and focus on productive activities rather than struggling with its operation.

5. Real-Time Monitoring and Analytics

Real-time insights into API usage, performance, and potential anomalies are vital. These features help identify bottlenecks, optimize performance, and proactively address security vulnerabilities as they arise.

Final Thoughts

Utilizing the correct API discovery tools can increase productivity, speed up integration procedures, and ensure solid security measures are in place. Tools like Cloudflare, Postman, etc., enable more efficient API management, encouraging team collaboration and reducing errors. Adopting these technologies allows organizations to negotiate the difficulties of API development with greater ease and confidence.

Akto is a comprehensive solution that facilitates API discovery while simultaneously prioritizing security through real-time monitoring and automated vulnerability testing. Organizations can use Akto to enable their development and security teams to innovate more quickly while also assuring the security and efficiency of their API. To get a smooth API management experience that boosts efficiency and security in the development process. Schedule a demo now!

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