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  "description": "An API Gateway is a server that sits in front of a collection of backend services and exposes a single entry point to clients. It typically handles request routing, authentication, rate limiting, request and response transformation, caching, and observability, so individual services can stay focused on business logic.\n\n\nCommon responsibilities\n\n * Routing: map external paths to internal services\n * Authentication and authorization: validate JWTs, API keys, or session cookies before the request r",
  "path": "/engineering-glossary/api-gateway-edge-router/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-12T18:10:16.000Z",
  "site": "https://sahilkapoor.com",
  "tags": [
    "REST API",
    "Microservices",
    "HTTP",
    "OAuth 2.0",
    "JWT"
  ],
  "textContent": "**An API Gateway** is a server that sits in front of a collection of backend services and exposes a single entry point to clients. It typically handles request routing, authentication, rate limiting, request and response transformation, caching, and observability, so individual services can stay focused on business logic.\n\n## Common responsibilities\n\n  * **Routing:** map external paths to internal services\n  * **Authentication and authorization:** validate JWTs, API keys, or session cookies before the request reaches a backend\n  * **Rate limiting and quotas:** protect backends from abuse and noisy clients\n  * **Request and response transformation:** reshape payloads, strip internal fields, add headers\n  * **Caching:** serve common GETs at the edge\n  * **Observability:** emit request logs, metrics, and traces in one place\n\n\n\n## Common implementations\n\n  * **Managed:** AWS API Gateway, Cloudflare API Gateway, Azure API Management, Google Apigee, Kong Konnect\n  * **Self-hosted:** Kong, KrakenD, Tyk, Envoy, Traefik, NGINX\n  * **Service mesh ingress:** Istio Gateway, Linkerd, Cilium Gateway\n\n\n\n🔗\n\n**Related Terms**\nREST API, Microservices, HTTP, OAuth 2.0, JWT.",
  "title": "API Gateway",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-13T19:15:03.739Z"
}