API Gateway vs. Reverse Proxy

Question 1

What do API Gateways and Reverse Proxies have in common?

Answer 1

They both manage incoming requests.

Question 2

What’s the purpose of an API Gateways?

Answer 2

It serves as a single point of entry, typically in microservice architectures to manage and route requests to the appropriate services.

Question 3

What are a few primary characteristics of an API Gateways? (Name 4)

Answer 3

They provide:

• Routing (to appropriate microservices)
• Aggregation (from multiple routed responses)
• Cross-cutting Concerns (handling authentication, authorization, rate limiting, etc.)
• Protocol Translation (translate between different protocols)

Question 4

What is the purpose of a Reverse Proxy?

Answer 4

It’s a server proxy that retrieves resources for a client from one or more servers.

Question 5

What are the primary characteristics of a Reverse Proxy? (Name 4)

Answer 5

They are:
- Load Balancing (distributes traffic across multiple services)
- Security (privacy by nature, server anonymity)
- Caching (cached content to reduce load)
- SSL Termination (SSL decryption instead of relying on each server to do that)

Question 6

What’s a common use case for a Reverse Proxy?

Answer 6

A common single point for handling cross-cutting concerns for monolithic or microservice architectures like security, caching, etc.

Question 7

How do API Gateways and Reverse Proxies differ in their roles?

Answer 7

API gateways focus on application-level traffic. Reverse proxies focus more on network or cross cutting concerns.

Question 8

How do API Gateways and Reverse Proxies differ in terms of complexity?

Answer 8

API Gateways tend to be more complex or support more complicated features (request transformation, rate limiting, etc.).

Reverse proxies tend to be simpler as they focus on network-level objectives like efficiency and security (cross cutting concerns)

Question 9

At a high level describe an API Gateway and Reverse Proxy (in terms of what they both do, and how they are different)

Answer 9

Both are components that manage traffic in a system. API gateways focus more on routing and orchestrating traffic to the appropriate sources whereas Reverse Proxies generally focus on high level/cross cutting concerns like efficiency.