By Jeremy Sindall
There’s been a growing murmur in recent months that API management is dead. Kicked off back in March 2023 with Christian Posta’s thought-provoking viral article, and recently ignited again by the cheeky eye-grabbing title and excerpt from Eric Newcomer’s API Days summary piece.
In a time where our API programs are being scrutinized over how they can deliver the cost and revenue benefits we’ve been promised, let’s take a look at how API management is alive, well and evolving to deliver these API economy benefits.
API Management Definitions
Before we delve into where API management is heading, it’s important to clear up some confusion over terminology I often hear when speaking to enterprises. API management and API lifecycle management are sometimes used interchangeably with API gateways and runtime management platforms, but these are not all the same thing.
API management is the combination of people, processes and technology you use to execute your API strategy successfully.
API lifecycle management is the repeatable framework for managing your APIs from planning and designing, to deploying, consuming, iterating and eventually retiring them.
