API7 Gateway Overview
API7 Gateway is an enterprise API management platform built on Apache APISIX. It provides a centralized control plane for managing, securing, and observing API traffic across your infrastructure.
This section helps you understand the platform and get your first API proxied through the gateway.
Platform Architecture
API7 Gateway uses a decoupled Control Plane (CP) and Data Plane (DP) architecture, ensuring high availability and scalability.
- Control Plane: The central management point where you define API policies, configure plugins, and manage users. It includes the Dashboard UI, Admin API, and the DP Manager that exposes an etcd-compatible API to the data planes.
- Data Plane: The high-performance gateway instances that process incoming API traffic. Data plane nodes watch configuration from the Control Plane over mTLS using the standard Apache APISIX etcd client.
For a detailed walkthrough of the architecture — including ports, protocols, and the comparison between open-source APISIX and API7 Enterprise — see the Architecture page.
What's in this Section?
Explore the following guides to get started with API7 Gateway:
- Quick Start: Deploy API7 Gateway locally using Docker Compose and proxy your first API request in minutes.
- Learn More About API7 Products and APISIX: Understand the relationship between API7 Enterprise and the Apache APISIX open-source project.
- Tutorial: Proxying and Managing API Requests via Plugins: A hands-on tutorial for securing and managing your APIs using authentication and rate-limiting plugins.
Next Steps
- Follow the Quick Start to launch your first API7 Gateway instance.
- If you want to use Admin API examples, obtain a token from the Dashboard first.
- Learn about Installation for production deployment options.