API Gateway vs. Service Mesh

Service mesh expert Cody De Arkland explains the differences between an API gateway and service mesh and how they work together. Learn more about Kong Mesh.

An API gateway helps companies offer APIs "as a product" to internal or external clients/users via a centralized ingress point. They can also govern and control how they are being exposed and onboarded via a full lifecycle APIM platform. API gateways are commonly used when different applications need to talk to each other and create an abstraction layer between the clients and the underlying APIs.

Service mesh is used to build reliable, secure, and observable L4/L7 traffic connectivity among all the services running in a company’s systems via a decentralized sidecar deployment model that can be adopted and enforced on every service. Commonly used within the scope of an application and to create point-to-point connectivity among all the services that belong to the application.

Most likely, your organization will have both of these use cases, and therefore an API gateway and service mesh will be used simultaneously.

For a more in-depth dive, download the eBook.