Company
Date Published
Author
Shay Nehmad, Engineering at Orca
Word count
1590
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

API proxies serve as intermediaries between applications and the APIs they consume, providing essential control and security features. There are two main types: client-side and server-side. A server-side API proxy, often compared to a satellite, facilitates communication by load balancing requests among multiple server instances and enforcing policies like authentication, authorization, and rate limiting. On the other hand, a client-side API proxy, likened to the moon, helps manage consumption issues across multiple instances of an application, ensuring scalability and efficiency without overwhelming servers. Tools like Lunar offer a streamlined solution for developers to manage these interactions, enhancing security, control, and scalability in the process.