API Gateway
Definition.
API Gateway: An API gateway is an API management tool that sits between a client and a collection of backend services.
In More Detail
A gateway sits in front of your services and owns the concerns that shouldn't be duplicated in each one: authentication, rate limiting, request logging, and routing. Without it, every service re-implements the same checks and they drift apart over time.
The trade-off is an extra network hop and a single point of failure, so it earns its place once you have more than one backend service or more than one client type (say a Flutter app and a web frontend hitting the same API). For a single Django app serving one frontend, middleware inside Django does the same job with less to operate.
In Practice
On Django REST Framework projects I use this layer for rate limiting and API key validation before a request ever hits a view — it's the difference between one bad actor slowing a request and one bad actor taking down the database.
Related Terms
Browse the full software development glossary, or see the frequently asked questions.
If you are working out whether this applies to your own project, the case studies show where it turned up in real builds, services lists what I take on, and pricing gives the starting figures.
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