API gateway vs service mesh - How they stack up HD

Let’s first talk about what’s common between them Both facilitate communication between apps/services Both manage traffic Both help with service discovery Both enable better observability of the system What’s different An API gateway operates at the application layer (high level) A service mesh operates at the infrastructure layer (low level) An API gateway focuses on business logic A service mesh focuses on service-to-service communication An API stands between external & internal apps A service mesh stands between internal services An API gateway enables transformation of requests & responses A service mesh simply relays communication as is An API gateway can work with monolithic & micro service applications A service mesh is means for microservice applications only API gateway is a more established technology Service mesh is a new and nascent technology There are many vendors for API gateways Service mesh is mostly open source API gateway is easier to get started with Service mesh involves a learning curve Examples of API gateways: Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Mulesoft, Kong, Tyk Examples of service mesh: Istio, Linkerd, Kuma, Consul