Difference between Integrated Portal and API Hub?

[DennisB1]

I want to understand what the difference is between the Integrated portal and API Hub? I haven't been able to find any demo videos online about the API Hub to see what the experience is. So I can only base my understanding of API hub on the "what is API Hub documentation". It seems like it offers a similar purpose as the integrated portal with the ability to register APIs outside of Apigee for discoverability.

Thanks,

Dennis

[vmartucci · Accepted solution]

Hi! API Hub and the developer portal are suited for different purposes, you can find some differences below:

API hub

• A central place for internal teams to find, register, and manage their API information
• Covers all APIs, including unreleased, live, retired, and everything in between
• Foundation for applying the API standards you define
• Define internal ownership info and application/service dependencies
• Agnostic of the platforms used to manage the APIs
• Only accessible within your organization. No styling/theming of look and feel

Developer Portal

• A storefront for APIs that are available for internal/external app developers and partners to consume
• Developer friendly documentation
• Self service app registration and API product subscription, credential management, “Try It” functionality, code snippets
• Can be externally facing, with branded look and feel, more product marketing content, forums/blogs etc
• Ability to offer monetized API packages

[dchiesa1]

@byz you may have something to contribute?

[DennisB1]

Come on @byz. You can do it! 🎉 What do you have to contribute?

[vmartucci · Accepted solution]

Hi! API Hub and the developer portal are suited for different purposes, you can find some differences below:

API hub

• A central place for internal teams to find, register, and manage their API information
• Covers all APIs, including unreleased, live, retired, and everything in between
• Foundation for applying the API standards you define
• Define internal ownership info and application/service dependencies
• Agnostic of the platforms used to manage the APIs
• Only accessible within your organization. No styling/theming of look and feel

Developer Portal

• A storefront for APIs that are available for internal/external app developers and partners to consume
• Developer friendly documentation
• Self service app registration and API product subscription, credential management, “Try It” functionality, code snippets
• Can be externally facing, with branded look and feel, more product marketing content, forums/blogs etc
• Ability to offer monetized API packages

[DennisB1]

Thank you for your reply!

Would you clarify a couple things for me?

• Is this where you would register APIs in your organization that are outside of Apigee?
• Is there a demo video that walks you through the API Hub experience?

[vmartucci · Accepted solution]

• Yes, this would be the place where you can centralize all APIs, also outside of APIGEE
• Have a look at this session, you can access the slides with some demos: https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/session-library?session=DEV203#all

[DennisB1]

This was great info! Thank you for providing it!

[byz]

Thanks for your patience and thanks @vmartucci for your answer and engaging on this post.

I checked with my colleague from the API Hub team as your question seemed to relate specifically to API Hub and I received the following response today:

"API Hub is a central repository for all the API assets that stores entire API Lifecycle information including specification about ALL APIs internal and external APIs across multiple gateways / platforms.  Platform or API Development teams uses API Hub user interface to get visibility into entire API Assets of the organization and manage them. 

Integrated Developer Portal, is primarily used by Developers for API Consumption - has API Specification and documentation for developing using those APIs. In the API lifecycle, the Platform or Business team can  export(through script for now) API Specification from API Hub to any Developer Portal like Apigee Integrated Developer Portal or Drupal based portal. "

This aligns well to @vmartucci's answer. If I were to provide my personal summary - API Hub is primarily for the administration and management of (all) APIs within the API owner/producer experience, whereas portals allow for specific publish and distribution (on the owner/producer side) and discovery and consumption (on the developer/consumer side) of APIs.