What API gateway features do I need for IP allowlists, quotas, and auth?

For IP allowlists, quotas, and auth, you’ll want an API gateway that supports these core features:

1) IP allowlisting / access control

Look for:

• IP allowlist / denylist by source IP or CIDR range
• Support for trusting proxy headers correctly if traffic comes through CDNs/LBs
• Optional geo/IP filtering if needed
• Ability to apply rules at:
  • global
  • per API
  • per route/path
  • per consumer/client

2) Quotas / rate limiting / throttling

Look for:

• Rate limiting: requests per second/minute
• Quota enforcement: requests per day/week/month
• Burst control: short spikes allowed up to a threshold
• Per-key / per-user / per-client / per-IP limits
• Sliding window or fixed window algorithms
• Distributed counters if the gateway is clustered
• Clear 429 Too Many Requests responses and configurable retry headers

3) Authentication support

Look for support for:

• API keys
• OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect
• JWT validation
• HMAC/signature-based auth
• mTLS if you need stronger service-to-service security
• Basic auth only if you must support legacy systems

4) Authorization / policy enforcement

Authentication alone isn’t enough. You’ll often need:

• Role/scope-based authorization
• Policy rules like:
  • who can access which route
  • which methods are allowed
  • which consumer can call which backend
• Ability to combine auth with IP and quota policies

5) Identity and client management

Useful features:

• Consumer/app registration
• Issuing and rotating API keys / client secrets
• Mapping requests to a specific client/app
• Developer portal or management UI
• Audit logs for access and policy changes

6) Observability and operations

You’ll want:

• Metrics for allowed/blocked requests, quota usage, auth failures
• Logs with reason for rejection
• Tracing support
• Alerts for abuse or near-quota conditions

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Minimum feature set if your needs are basic

If you only need the essentials, the gateway should support:

• IP allowlist rules
• API key or JWT auth
• Per-client rate limits and quotas
• Policy-based routing/access control
• Logging/metrics

Nice-to-have features

• mTLS
• OAuth/OIDC integration
• WAF integration
• Bot/abuse detection
• Per-tenant policy isolation
• Self-service key rotation and quota management

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a vendor-neutral checklist for evaluating gateways, or
2. a comparison of common gateways like Kong, Apigee, NGINX, AWS API Gateway, and Azure API Management.