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API Acceleration Hero Image

API Acceleration

Optimize API performance and availability while enhancing user experiences.

Free trial

Take Control of Your APIs

API Acceleration provides consistent, secure API experiences through route optimization, response caching, and scalable authentication. It enhances user experiences with fast and consistent API performance, even during peak events. API Acceleration provides scalable origin security through IP-based access control lists that prevent unauthorized requests from reaching your origin infrastructure and a singular onboarding workflow. It helps to reduce load on your origin and maintain predictable cloud infrastructure costs, and is backed by a 100% uptime SLA. API Acceleration also offers serverless capabilities to enable agile development.

See product brief

How API Acceleration Works

Offload

Offload

API Acceleration offloads requests from origin infrastructures to the edge.

Deliver

Deliver

Cached responses and dynamic content route to the user via a close edge server or optimal path.

Secure

Secure

APIs are secured with scalable origin protection and a singular onboarding workflow.

Safeguard

Safeguard

If a failure occurs, API Acceleration switches from one origin to another to ensure availability.

Accelerate API performance at scale

Boost API performance at the edge

Deliver highly reliable digital experiences with intelligent routing and fast API responses.

Scale instantly for spikes in demand

Effortlessly scale your endpoints using preferred capacity at the edge.

Enhance API security and manage access

Protect your API endpoints. Move authentication from the origin to the edge.

Features

  • Offload API requests from origin infrastructures, balancing and routing for fast responses
  • Secure APIs by encrypting responses and moving authentication away from origin infrastructure
  • Control infrastructure costs with intelligent caching logic for REST and GraphQL
  • Give development teams serverless capabilities like authentication and API orchestration
  • 100% availability SLA: Achieve maximum API availability through even the highest traffic spikes
  • See real-time insights into key API performance indicators, dimensions, and trends

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

API acceleration refers to the process of increasing the speed, reliability, and availability of APIs and web APIs. Because APIs are used by so many different applications, any latency in processing responses can lead to significant lag or performance issues, which result in a poor experience for users. API acceleration strategies and technologies are designed to increase performance and availability, and deliver faster and better online user experiences.

API Acceleration works with XML, JSON, and other small transactional and programmatic traffic types.

API Acceleration offers many ways for developers to improve API functions, including:

  • Scale on demand: Effortlessly scale your endpoints for peaks using preferred capacity on the edge
  • High reliability: Drive down API response errors for high CPU traffic by utilizing specialized hardware on the edge 
  • API response caching: Offload your origin through advanced caching logic for REST and GraphQL APIs
  • Authenticate: Authorize requests at the edge using JWT validation
  • CI/CD integrations: Seamlessly merge Akamai development with extant DevOps workflows with APIs for everything, as well as Akamai CLI
  • Serverless computing: Preconfigured and open computation directly at the edge for rapid delivery
  • Early-stage testing: Shift testing to the left so developers can proof their code early on
  • Fast purge and metadata activation: For rapid content and configuration changes

API Acceleration is beneficial for applications with:

  • Highly distributed users, such as a public API
  • Dynamic, non-cacheable content that has a high volume of requests
  • Asymmetric traffic flow, such as telemetry or beacons that often have more ingress than egress
  • Bidirectional communication between the app and origin, such as chat, gaming, or social media
  • B2B data feed, in some instances server to server, where demand originates from a concentrated location
  • Flash crowds that cause rapid spikes in requests, such as gate drop events, betting applications, and online auctions

Products that work well with API Acceleration

App & API Protector

Leading security protection for applications and APIs at the edge.

Learn more

API Gateway

Register, manage, and deliver your APIs efficiently and securely over the ​​Akamai​​ network.

Learn more
Business Standard

With Akamai, we’ve seen a marked improvement in site performance — and that enables us to better compete in an industry where speed of delivery is crucial. We are far better equipped than our competitors to provide a premium experience that delights our customers.

Shailendra Kalelkar, Digital Business Head, Business Standard

See the full story

Resources

Reference architecture

Scaling for API Peak Consumption

Discover how to prepare for peak demand by testing API performance under load.

View reference architecture
Blog

Deploying HarperDB and Akamai Connected Cloud

Learn how to deploy HarperDB and Akamai Connected Cloud together for faster API performance and an unparalleled user experience.

Read blog
Press Release

Akamai Recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape

Analyst firm cites innovation, developer tools, and global services as key strengths in naming Akamai a commercial CDN leader.

Read press release

Free Trial: API Acceleration

Your competitive edge starts now.

What difference can the world’s largest edge platform make for you? Take API Acceleration for a free test run and find out.

Set up your 30-day free trial:

  1. Submit form
  2. Confirm your email
  3. Pass Akamai’s validation and vetting process
  4. Receive login instructions
  5. Log in and set up your instance of API Acceleration

Terms and restrictions apply.

Thank you for requesting a trial of Akamai API Acceleration! We’ve sent an email request for you to verify your email address. Once verified, you’ll receive another email with your login credentials to get started.