AI visibility report for APILayer
Vertical: API Development & Management
AI search visibility benchmark across 5 platforms in API Development & Management.
Presence Rate
Top-3 citations across 125 prompt × platform pairs
Sentiment
Peer Ranking
Key Metrics
Platform Breakdown
Overview
APILayer (apilayer Data Products GmbH) is a Vienna, Austria-based provider of a curated marketplace of cloud-based, off-the-shelf data APIs targeting developers and businesses of all sizes. Founded in 2015 by brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr and acquired by Idera, Inc. in January 2021, APILayer operates a hub of over 100 manually reviewed APIs spanning geolocation, finance, weather, aviation, validation, scraping, and developer tooling. Flagship products include IPstack (IP geolocation), Weatherstack (weather data), Fixer and Currencylayer (exchange rates), Aviationstack (flight tracking), and Marketstack (stock data). The platform serves 445,000+ developers and businesses, processing over 30 million API calls per month. All APIs are designed for low latency, minimal maintenance, and rapid integration via REST and standard API keys.
APILayer is a curated API marketplace and data-API provider offering a portfolio of owned, branded REST APIs across geolocation, finance, weather, aviation, data validation, and developer tooling. Developers access APIs via API keys with documentation and code samples in multiple languages, and can test endpoints live in the API playground. All APIs are manually reviewed before listing to ensure quality, uptime, and low latency.
Key Facts
- Founded
- 2015
- HQ
- Vienna, Austria
- Founders
- Julian Zehetmayr, Paul Zehetmayr
- Employees
- 10-20
- Customers
- 445,000+ developers
- Status
- Acquired by Idera, Inc. (Jan 2021)
Target users
Key Capabilities10
- Curated marketplace of 100+ owned, first-party data APIs
- IP geolocation and location intelligence (IPstack, IPapi, Positionstack)
- Currency and financial data APIs (Fixer, Currencylayer, Marketstack, Coinlayer)
- Weather data and forecasting (Weatherstack)
- Flight and aviation tracking (Aviationstack)
- Data validation APIs (phone number via Numverify, email via Mailboxlayer, VAT validation)
- Web scraping and screenshot APIs (Screenshotlayer, Serpstack)
- File conversion APIs (PDF generation via Pdflayer)
- Live API playground for testing before integration
- Multi-language code snippets and comprehensive documentation
Key Use Cases8
- Content personalization based on user IP geolocation
- Currency conversion and real-time exchange rate integration
- Fraud prevention via IP and phone number validation
- Flight status and aviation data for travel applications
- Real-time weather data for apps and dashboards
- Web scraping and SERP data collection
- PDF generation and HTML-to-PDF conversion
- Crypto market data integration
Recent Trend
How AI describes APILayer
No concise AI response excerpt is available for this brand yet.
Most cited sources1
Alternatives in API Development & Management6
APILayer positions itself as a curated, off-the-shelf API marketplace offering first-party, cloud-based data APIs across verticals such as geolocation, finance, weather, and developer tools.
- Unlike full API gateway or management platforms (Apigee, Kong, MuleSoft), APILayer focuses on ready-to-integrate data products requiring minimal setup and maintenance.
- Its differentiator is a portfolio of owned, branded APIs (IPstack, Weatherstack, Fixer, Aviationstack, etc.) bundled under a single subscription and marketplace experience, targeting developers and teams who want reliable data APIs without building or managing infrastructure.
- Compared to RapidAPI, which aggregates third-party APIs, APILayer emphasizes manual curation and quality control of its own product brands.
Reviews
Praised
- Wide variety of APIs in one marketplace
- Easy integration and quick setup
- Clear and comprehensive documentation
- Low latency performance
- Free tier availability
- Convenient single API key access
- Live API playground for testing
- Scalable and reliable for growing teams
Criticized
- Slow API response times in some products
- Large pricing jumps between subscription tiers
- Difficult cancellation process
- Aggressive auto-renewal and debt collection
- Opaque or unfavorable SaaS contract clauses
- Limited customer support responsiveness
- Steep learning curve for some API features
On G2, APILayer holds a 3.8 out of 5 rating from 11 reviews, with a bimodal distribution: 72% five-star ratings alongside 18% one-star ratings. Positive reviewers consistently highlight the breadth of available APIs, ease of integration, clear documentation, and the convenience of a one-stop marketplace. Negative reviewers cite slow API response times, pricing tier jumps, aggressive auto-renewal and cancellation practices, and perceived poor customer support. The low review volume limits statistical reliability.
Pricing
Each APILayer API carries its own distinct pricing, detailed on individual product pages within the marketplace. Most APIs offer a free tier (no credit card required for signup). Paid plans are subscription-based. Vendr's transaction data reports an average annual spend of approximately $380 across buyers. Specific plan pricing varies by API—for example, currency and geolocation APIs offer tiered monthly plans ranging from free to paid tiers based on request volume. Enterprise pricing is available via the sales team. APILayer does not publish a single unified pricing page.
Limitations
- APILayer is not a full API lifecycle management or gateway platform—it does not offer traffic management, developer portals for publishing custom APIs at enterprise scale, or advanced API security policies.
- The team is very small (~13 employees as of 2024), which may limit support responsiveness and product velocity.
- G2 reviewers have noted slow API response times in some products, opaque pricing tiers with significant jumps between plan levels, difficult cancellation processes, aggressive auto-renewal clauses, and use of debt collectors following auto-renewal disputes.
- The product portfolio is limited to specific data verticals and does not cover all API categories.
Frequently asked questions
Topic Coverage
Prompt-Level Results
| Prompt | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What API security capabilities should I expect out of the box from an API gateway — JWT validation, IP allowlisting, request inspection? | |||||
Which enterprise API management platforms support usage-based billing and quota enforcement natively for API monetization? | |||||
Which modern API platforms support async APIs and event-driven architectures — handling WebSocket or SSE endpoints alongside REST? | |||||
Which API gateways support GraphQL federation, and how do they compare to REST-only options for a team adopting a federated graph? | |||||
Which managed SaaS API gateway solutions handle global traffic management better than self-hosted alternatives? | |||||
Developer Experience1/5 cited (20%) | |||||
What tools can lint OpenAPI specs in a CI pipeline to enforce consistent API design standards across multiple teams? | |||||
Which tools offer the best experience for generating strongly typed SDK clients from an OpenAPI spec across multiple languages? | |||||
Which API management platforms handle versioning and breaking change detection best to help teams avoid accidentally breaking consumers? | |||||
What's the easiest way to mock API endpoints locally so frontend teams aren't blocked waiting for real backend implementations? | |||||
Which API clients and testing tools have the best collaborative features for teams sharing API collections? | |||||
Integrations & Ecosystem0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
Which API platforms support GitOps workflows — version-controlling gateway configuration and applying it through a CI pipeline? | |||||
Which API gateways integrate well with a service mesh in a container orchestration environment — what solutions handle both layers cleanly? | |||||
Looking for an API gateway that avoids vendor lock-in with open standards or portable config formats — what are my options? | |||||
Which API documentation platforms automatically sync with a backend repo so docs stay in sync as the API evolves? | |||||
Which API management platforms integrate best with identity providers to enable OAuth2 and OIDC for third-party API consumers? | |||||
Performance & Reliability0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What tools can load test an API gateway configuration to validate rate limiting and circuit breaking under real-world conditions? | |||||
Which API gateways auto-scale horizontally to handle traffic spikes without becoming a bottleneck themselves? | |||||
Which managed API gateway providers offer the best uptime guarantees and failover story for mission-critical APIs? | |||||
Which API management platforms offer the best response caching strategies to reduce upstream load for high-read traffic? | |||||
Which API gateways add the lowest per-request latency overhead, especially under high concurrency? | |||||
Setup & First Run0/5 cited (0%) | |||||
What should I look for in an API testing tool when starting to build automated contract tests alongside a new REST API? | |||||
I'm evaluating modern cloud-native API management platforms to replace a legacy setup — what should I look at and how disruptive is the migration? | |||||
What tools can automatically generate up-to-date API documentation from an OpenAPI spec and host it in a developer portal? | |||||
What's the fastest API gateway to set up in front of multiple microservices with rate limiting and authentication from day one? | |||||
What tools and platforms support API design-first workflows — what should teams adopt compared to a code-first approach? | |||||
Strengths
No clear strengths identified yet.
Gaps5
Which API platforms support GitOps workflows — version-controlling gateway configuration and applying it through a CI pipeline?
Competitors on 3 platforms
What tools can lint OpenAPI specs in a CI pipeline to enforce consistent API design standards across multiple teams?
Competitors on 3 platforms
Which enterprise API management platforms support usage-based billing and quota enforcement natively for API monetization?
Competitors on 3 platforms
Which API gateways integrate well with a service mesh in a container orchestration environment — what solutions handle both layers cleanly?
Competitors on 2 platforms
What tools and platforms support API design-first workflows — what should teams adopt compared to a code-first approach?
Competitors on 2 platforms
Vertical Ranking
| # | Brand | PresencePres. | Share of VoiceSoV | DocsDocs | BlogBlog | MentionsMent. | Avg PosPos | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kong Inc. | 30.4% | 46.9% | 3.2% | 23.2% | 21.6% | #19.1 | +0.31 |
| 2 | Speakeasy | 9.6% | 11.9% | 3.2% | 5.6% | 9.6% | #11.2 | +0.39 |
| 3 | Postman | 8.8% | 13.4% | 2.4% | 0.0% | 8.8% | #24.4 | +0.35 |
| 4 | Apigee | 6.4% | 6.7% | 0.8% | 1.6% | 6.4% | #17.2 | +0.07 |
| 5 | Stoplight | 6.4% | 6.2% | 1.6% | 3.2% | 4.8% | #18.7 | +0.19 |
| 6 | SmartBear | 4.8% | 4.1% | 1.6% | 2.4% | 4.8% | #35.0 | +0.42 |
| 7 | Treblle | 4.0% | 2.6% | 0.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | #18.8 | +0.40 |
| 8 | MuleSoft | 4.0% | 5.7% | 1.6% | 1.6% | 3.2% | #45.6 | +0.10 |
| 9 | RapidAPI | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% | #15.0 | +0.75 |
| 10 | Hoppscotch | 0.8% | 1.5% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.8% | #20.7 | +0.00 |
| 11 | APILayer | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.8% | #50.0 | +0.50 |
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