Can you help me compare API gateways for multi-cloud routing, logging, and rate limiting?

Absolutely. For multi-cloud routing, logging, and rate limiting, the “best” API gateway depends on whether you want a managed cloud service, a Kubernetes-native gateway, or a self-managed control plane/data plane setup.

Quick comparison

Gateway	Multi-cloud routing	Logging/observability	Rate limiting	Best fit
Kong Gateway	Strong	Strong	Strong	Highly flexible, hybrid/multi-cloud
NGINX Plus / NGINX Gateway Fabric	Strong	Good	Strong	Performance-focused, cloud-agnostic
Istio / Envoy-based gateways	Strong	Very strong	Strong	Service mesh + advanced traffic control
Apigee	Good	Strong	Very strong	Enterprise API management, governance
Azure API Management	Medium	Strong	Strong	Azure-centric multi-cloud/hybrid
AWS API Gateway	Medium	Good	Strong	AWS-centric, serverless/API front door
Google Apigee / Apigee X	Good	Strong	Very strong	Global API program management
Traefik Hub / Traefik Proxy	Good	Good	Good	Kubernetes-first simplicity
Tyk	Strong	Good	Strong	Lightweight, self-hostable, multi-cloud
Gravitee	Strong	Strong	Strong	API management + analytics focus

What matters for your use case

1) Multi-cloud routing

You want the gateway to route traffic across:

• multiple cloud providers,
• multiple regions,
• possibly on-prem + cloud,
• and ideally based on health, latency, headers, path, or geo.

Best options:

• Kong: very flexible routing plugins, works across environments.
• Istio/Envoy: excellent traffic policies, retries, failover, weighted routing.
• NGINX: strong if you’re comfortable configuring routing yourself.
• Apigee / Gravitee / Tyk: good if you want API-management features on top.

Less ideal for true multi-cloud control:

• AWS API Gateway and Azure API Management are good products, but they are more naturally centered around their own clouds.

2) Logging and observability

Look for:

• request/response logs,
• correlation IDs,
• integration with OpenTelemetry,
• export to ELK/EFK, Datadog, Splunk, CloudWatch, Stackdriver/Cloud Logging, etc.

Strong options:

• Kong: good plugin ecosystem, works with most observability stacks.
• Istio/Envoy: best-in-class telemetry if you already run a mesh.
• Apigee: strong analytics and API reporting.
• Gravitee: strong analytics/story around API lifecycle.
• Tyk: solid logging and dashboarding.

3) Rate limiting

You’ll want:

• global or distributed rate limits,
• per-key / per-client / per-route limits,
• burst control,
• quota windows,
• possibly per-region enforcement.

Best options:

• Kong: mature rate limiting plugins.
• Apigee: very strong policy-based quota/rate limiting.
• Tyk: good rate limiting and quotas.
• Istio/Envoy: can do it, but often requires more setup or external rate-limit service.

Practical recommendations

If you want the most balanced multi-cloud option

Kong Gateway
Best overall mix of:

• routing flexibility,
• logging/metrics integrations,
• rate limiting,
• hybrid deployment support.

If you’re running Kubernetes and want advanced traffic control

Istio + Envoy gateway
Best for:

• sophisticated routing,
• resilience policies,
• telemetry,
• service-to-service controls.

If you want enterprise API governance and analytics

Apigee
Best for:

• API program management,
• quotas/rate plans,
• analytics,
• developer portal,
• enterprise governance.

If you want lightweight and self-managed

Tyk
Good choice if you want:

• easier self-hosting,
• multi-cloud flexibility,
• decent analytics and rate limiting,
• less operational overhead than some enterprise stacks.

Short decision guide

• Need the most flexible multi-cloud routing? → Kong or Istio/Envoy
• Need best enterprise API management? → Apigee
• Need Kubernetes-native traffic control? → Istio
• Need simpler self-hosted multi-cloud gateway? → Tyk
• Need cloud-provider-native and already committed to one cloud? → AWS API Gateway or Azure APIM

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a feature-by-feature matrix for 5–8 gateways,
2. a recommendation based on your stack (Kubernetes, VMs, serverless, etc.), or
3. a comparison specifically for open-source gateways.