Should I use an API gateway or just put NGINX in front of my services?

It depends on what problems you need solved.

Use NGINX in front of your services if you mainly need:

• Simple reverse proxying
• TLS termination
• Load balancing
• Basic path-based routing
• Static file serving
• A lightweight, well-known edge component

This is a good choice when:

• You have a small number of services
• You control the clients or don’t need complex API management
• You want low overhead and simple ops
• You don’t need per-client auth policies, quotas, or developer portal features

Use an API gateway if you need:

• Authentication and authorization integration at the edge
• Rate limiting / throttling per client or per API key
• Request/response transformation
• API versioning and routing rules
• Logging, analytics, and observability per API consumer
• API keys, JWT validation, OAuth/OIDC support
• Developer onboarding / public API management
• Centralized policy enforcement across many services

This is usually better when:

• You expose APIs to external customers or partners
• You have many microservices
• Different consumers need different policies
• You want one place for cross-cutting API concerns

A practical rule of thumb

• Internal app, few services, simple traffic → start with NGINX
• Public or partner-facing APIs, many consumers, complex policies → use an API gateway

Important nuance

NGINX can do some gateway-like things, and many API gateways are built on top of NGINX or similar proxies. The real question is whether you need:

• just traffic management, or
• API management

Common hybrid approach

Many teams use:

• NGINX or a load balancer at the edge
• API gateway for public/API-specific control
• service mesh / internal routing for service-to-service traffic

My recommendation

If you’re unsure, start with NGINX unless you already know you need gateway features like auth, quotas, API keys, transformation, or analytics. It’s simpler and easier to operate. You can add a gateway later if your needs grow.

If you want, I can help you choose based on your specific setup (number of services, public vs internal, auth needs, Kubernetes or not, expected traffic).