Yes—Azure API Management (APIM) can be great for internal governance, but for external developer onboarding it often feels heavy: portal setup, policy complexity, product/subscription workflows, and not-so-lightweight docs/testing experiences.

Here are the best alternatives, depending on what you mean by “onboarding”:

1) Cloudflare API Gateway + Workers

Best for: lightweight edge proxying, security, and fast public APIs
Why it’s better for onboarding:

• Simpler surface area than APIM
• Can sit at the edge for low latency
• Easy to pair with docs/portal elsewhere
• Good for auth, rate limiting, and schema validation

Tradeoff: not a full developer portal / monetization / product management platform out of the box.

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2) Kong Konnect / Kong Gateway

Best for: mature API management with a better DX than APIM for many teams
Why it’s good:

• Strong gateway + developer portal options
• Good plugin ecosystem
• Easier to reason about than APIM policies for many engineers
• Works across clouds/on-prem

Tradeoff: still a platform to operate and learn; can be expensive at scale.

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3) Tyk

Best for: teams wanting API management without APIM’s complexity
Why it stands out:

• Good developer portal
• Straightforward auth/rate limiting
• Flexible deployment model
• Often perceived as simpler than APIM

Tradeoff: smaller ecosystem than Kong; evaluate portal polish carefully.

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4) AWS API Gateway + Developer Portal stack

If you’re open to non-Azure:

• API Gateway for routing/auth/throttling
• Cognito or external IdP for auth
• A separate portal/docs site

Why it’s better: simpler operationally for some teams than APIM
Tradeoff: not a single integrated “developer onboarding” experience unless you build it.

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5) Self-managed gateway + docs/portal combo

A very common pattern is:

• Gateway: Kong, Tyk, NGINX, Envoy, or Cloudflare
• Auth: Auth0 / Okta / Azure AD B2C / Cognito
• Docs/Portal: Stoplight, ReadMe, Redocly, SwaggerHub, or custom Next.js site
• API spec-first: OpenAPI as the source of truth

This often gives the best external onboarding experience because you can make the portal excellent without being constrained by a monolithic APIM product.

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6) ReadMe or Stoplight as the onboarding layer

If your main pain is the developer experience, not the gateway:

• Use APIM only as the backend gateway if needed
• Put ReadMe or Stoplight in front for:
  • interactive docs
  • API keys
  • onboarding flows
  • “try it” consoles
  • changelogs / tutorials

This can dramatically improve external onboarding even if you keep your current gateway.

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What usually works best

For external developers, the best experience is often:

OpenAPI-first docs + dedicated developer portal + lightweight gateway + external IdP

Example stack:

• Portal/docs: ReadMe or Stoplight
• Gateway: Kong, Tyk, Cloudflare, or even APIM if you must
• Auth: Okta/Auth0/Azure AD B2C
• Spec management: Git-based OpenAPI + CI checks

This avoids making your gateway product also be your documentation, onboarding, and support system.

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If you want to stay in Azure

If you want to remain mostly on Azure but improve DX:

• Keep APIM only as the runtime gateway
• Move onboarding/docs to ReadMe/Stoplight/Redocly
• Use Azure AD B2C or another external identity provider
• Automate subscriptions/API key issuance via scripts/CI

That’s often the least disruptive fix.

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Quick recommendation

• Need best external developer experience? → ReadMe + Kong/Tyk/Cloudflare
• Need edge + security + simplicity? → Cloudflare
• Need enterprise-grade API platform? → Kong Konnect
• Need simpler APIM-like experience? → Tyk
• Need to stay on Azure but improve onboarding? → APIM + ReadMe/Stoplight

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a decision matrix comparing APIM vs Kong vs Tyk vs Cloudflare, or
2. a reference architecture for external developer onboarding on Azure.