Apigee Adapter for Envoy is an Apigee-managed API gateway that uses
Envoy to proxy API
traffic. Envoy is a popular, open source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native
applications. You can run Apigee Adapter for Envoy on premises or in a multi-cloud environment.
With Apigee Adapter for Envoy, you get a relatively small footprint API gateway application
running close to your backend applications. Apigee Adapter for Envoy relies on Apigee for:
API authentication and authorization (with API keys and OAuth)
Quota management
API analytics
Watch videos:
This video offers an overview and demo of Google Cloud's Apigee Adapter for Envoy.
This video describes using the Apigee Adapter for Envoy with Service Mesh.
Installation options
You can use the Apigee Adapter for Envoy in the following context:
The following figure shows the high level architecture for Apigee Adapter for Envoy.
This architecture consists of management plane components deployed on Google Cloud Platform
and data plane components running remotely on premises or in a cloud provider environment. The
data plane includes the Envoy proxy and Apigee Remote Service. The role of each component
is described following the figure.
A consumer or client app accesses an API endpoint exposed by the Envoy proxy.
The Envoy proxy passes the security context (using HTTP headers) to the Apigee
Remote Service. The Apigee Remote Service acts as a policy decision point (PDP) and advises Envoy to allow or
deny access to the API consumer for the request.
If the call is allowed, the Envoy proxy forwards the request to the backend.
The Apigee Remote Service asynchronously polls the management plane and downloads proxy, API product, and
other configuration that it needs to operate.
Why use Apigee Adapter for Envoy?
Moving the API management component close to backend target applications can reduce network
latency. While you can install Apigee on-premises in a private cloud, a full deployment of
Apigee is necessarily large and complex to support its full feature-set and data-heavy
features like key management, monetization, and analytics. This means that deploying Apigee
on premises in each data-center is not always desirable.
Benefits of using Apigee Adapter for Envoy include:
Reduced latency of API traffic for services that run in close proximity.
Use of the full suite of Apigee Analytics metrics, dashboards, and APIs.
Keeps API traffic within the enterprise-approved boundaries for security or compliance
purposes.
Asynchronous communication with Apigee allows API traffic data to be captured and
sent to Apigee without affecting latency.
The adapter can tolerate temporary communication interruptions with the management
plane. Over time, however, an interruption can lead to loss of functionality. The adapter requires
communication with the management plane for:
Generating OAuth tokens
Verifying API keys (connection is required for the first verification, after which it is cached)
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-26 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eApigee Adapter for Envoy is an Apigee-managed API gateway that uses Envoy to proxy API traffic, suitable for on-premises or multi-cloud environments.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis adapter provides API authentication, authorization, and quota management, relying on Apigee for these core functionalities.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eIt can be deployed as a native service or within an Istio service mesh integrated with Apigee hybrid, offering flexibility in deployment.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsing Apigee Adapter for Envoy reduces API traffic latency by situating API management closer to backend applications, with benefits such as full access to Apigee Analytics.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe adapter communicates asynchronously with the Apigee management plane for various functions like OAuth token generation and quota enforcement, while being able to tolerate temporary communication interruptions.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,["# Apigee Adapter for Envoy overview\n\n*This page\napplies to **Apigee** and **Apigee hybrid**.*\n\n\n*View [Apigee Edge](https://docs.apigee.com/api-platform/get-started/what-apigee-edge) documentation.*\n\nWhat is Apigee Adapter for Envoy?\n---------------------------------\n\n\nApigee Adapter for Envoy is an Apigee-managed API gateway that uses\n[Envoy](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/intro/what_is_envoy) to proxy API\ntraffic. Envoy is a popular, open source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native\napplications. You can run Apigee Adapter for Envoy on premises or in a multi-cloud environment.\n\nWith Apigee Adapter for Envoy, you get a relatively small footprint API gateway application\nrunning close to your backend applications. Apigee Adapter for Envoy relies on Apigee for:\n\n- API authentication and authorization (with API keys and OAuth)\n- Quota management\n- API analytics\n\n\n**Watch videos:** \nThis video offers an overview and demo of Google Cloud's Apigee Adapter for Envoy. \nThis video describes using the Apigee Adapter for Envoy with Service Mesh.\n\nInstallation options\n--------------------\n\n\nYou can use the Apigee Adapter for Envoy in the following context:\n\n- As a native service. See [Native Envoy example for Apigee and hybrid](/apigee/docs/api-platform/envoy-adapter/v2.0.x/example-apigee).\n- As a service deployed to the Istio service mesh integrated with Apigee hybrid. See [Apigee hybrid example with Kubernetes](/apigee/docs/api-platform/envoy-adapter/v2.0.x/example-hybrid).\n\nApigee Adapter for Envoy\n------------------------\n\n\nThe following figure shows the high level architecture for Apigee Adapter for Envoy.\nThis architecture consists of management plane components deployed on Google Cloud Platform\nand data plane components running remotely on premises or in a cloud provider environment. The\ndata plane includes the Envoy proxy and Apigee Remote Service. The role of each component\nis described following the figure.\n\n1. A consumer or client app accesses an API endpoint exposed by the Envoy proxy.\n2. The Envoy proxy passes the security context (using HTTP headers) to the Apigee Remote Service. The Apigee Remote Service acts as a policy decision point (PDP) and advises Envoy to allow or deny access to the API consumer for the request.\n3. If the call is allowed, the Envoy proxy forwards the request to the backend.\n4. The Apigee Remote Service asynchronously polls the management plane and downloads proxy, API product, and other configuration that it needs to operate.\n\nWhy use Apigee Adapter for Envoy?\n---------------------------------\n\nMoving the API management component close to backend target applications can reduce network\nlatency. While you can install Apigee on-premises in a private cloud, a full deployment of\nApigee is necessarily large and complex to support its full feature-set and data-heavy\nfeatures like key management, monetization, and analytics. This means that deploying Apigee\non premises in each data-center is not always desirable.\n\nBenefits of using Apigee Adapter for Envoy include:\n\n- Reduced latency of API traffic for services that run in close proximity.\n\n- Use of the full suite of Apigee Analytics metrics, dashboards, and APIs.\n- Keeps API traffic within the enterprise-approved boundaries for security or compliance purposes.\n- Asynchronous communication with Apigee allows API traffic data to be captured and sent to Apigee without affecting latency.\n- The adapter can tolerate temporary communication interruptions with the management plane. Over time, however, an interruption can lead to loss of functionality. The adapter requires communication with the management plane for:\n - Generating OAuth tokens\n - Verifying API keys (connection is required for the first verification, after which it is cached)\n - Enforcing quotas\n - Sending analytics data to the management plane\n\nNext step\n---------\n\n[Install Apigee Adapter for Envoy](/apigee/docs/api-platform/envoy-adapter/v2.0.x/getting-started)"]]
