Every category where a model named Azure API Management for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
API management	Developer platform	7%	5 of 55	20%	41	accepted challenger
API gateways	Developer platform	0%	8 of 51	18%	33	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Azure API Management yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Azure API Management across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	1	2	4	0	7
GPT-5.4 mini	0	4	2	1	7
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	5	1	0	6
Perplexity Sonar	0	3	1	0	4
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	4	2	3	9
Mistral Small	1	1	2	0	4
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	2	2	5
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	2	0	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	3	3	2	8
Kimi K2	0	4	0	4	8
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	6	1	2	9
MiniMax M2.5	1	1	3	0	5

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct44 labels3

Paraphrase37 labels3

Comparative49 labelsNone

Budget-constrained25 labels4

Scale-constrained24 labelsNone

Negative41 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative220 labels in all, every segment counted; 10 of the 11 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Kong or Azure API Management offer the best balance of features, scalability, and cost-effectiveness” MiniMax M2.5 · API management · direct prompt · first choice

“Kong and Azure API Management are the top choices due to their balance of features, scalability, and cost” Mistral Small · API management · direct prompt · first choice

“Kong (Kong Konnect) or Azure API Management are strong choices for mid-market B2B companies.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · API management · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“native offerings like AWS API Gateway or Azure API Management require almost zero maintenance, but they can suffer from higher cold-start latencies” Gemini 3.5 Flash · API gateways · scale prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Avoid using deprecated or retired features/platforms (Azure APIM v0/v1, legacy portal, stv1” GLM 4.7 FlashX · API gateways · negative prompt · hard negative

“Azure API Management’s `stv1` compute platform was scheduled for retirement on August 31, 2024, and Microsoft recommends migrating to `stv2`” GPT-5.4 mini · API management · negative prompt · soft negative

“The Risk: While these are fantastic tools if you live entirely within that ecosystem, migrating them out is difficult.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · API management · negative prompt · soft negative

“Cost surprises around logs/telemetry ... Scaling is slow ... weaker as a standalone general-purpose choice.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · API management · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Azure API Management, over the 220 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Azure API Management was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Kong Gateway210 of 22072Not in the top three

Amazon API Gateway187 of 2206Not in the top three

Apigee183 of 22039Not in the top three

Tyk131 of 22016Not in the top three

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform124 of 2209Not in the top three

Zuplo58 of 22022Not in the top three

IBM API Connect50 of 2202Not in the top three

Gravitee41 of 2202Not in the top three

Apache APISIX38 of 2206Not in the top three

WSO2 API Manager34 of 2200Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Azure API Management. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 171 of the 220 answers that named Azure API Management and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

zuplo.com113

gartner.com72

moesif.com71

digitalapi.ai68

api7.ai64

integrate.io61

geekflare.com56

g2.com52

toolradar.com50

improvado.io49

656 of the 656 domain citations in answers naming Azure API Management came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/api-management67

moesif.com/blog/technical/api-development/Top-API-Managers61

geekflare.com/guides/best-api-gateways56

integrate.io/blog/api-management-tools55

toolradar.com/guides/best-api-gateways49

improvado.io/blog/top-api-management-tools48

zuplo.com/learning-center/api-gateway-pricing-comparison-202647

dupple.com/learn/best-api-gateways43

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Azure API Management

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Azure API Management; a claim can dispute any of them.

Azure API Management (APIM) 6Azure APIM 6Azure API Mgmt 2Microsoft Azure API Management 2Azure 1Azure API Management (Developer Tier) 1

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