# Company > An API & AI platform with middleware DNA. Apinizer was started in 2015 by consultants with 20+ years inside the world's largest SOA, ESB, and API platforms. We built the gateway we always wished we had — Kubernetes-native, audit-first, and ready for both human and agent traffic. [Request a demo](https://calendly.com/apinizer/15min) · [See the customers](https://apinizer.com/company/customers) --- ## Apinizer at a glance - **20+ years middleware DNA** — Founders trained, consulted on, and operated SOA, ESB, and API platforms long before Apinizer. - **100+ organizations in production** — Banks, ministries, regulators, defense, energy, telecom — running Apinizer on their own Kubernetes. - **Founded 2015** — Started by middleware consultants who saw legacy API gateways stall under regulated, multi-protocol traffic. - **Kubernetes-native since 2018** — Rewrote the platform around Manager + Worker — the model every customer runs today. --- ## The story Built by middleware veterans, for the teams who can't afford a second platform. Before Apinizer, our founding team spent two decades inside the SOA and ESB era — consulting on, training engineers for, and operating the largest enterprise middleware deployments in the region. We watched the same pattern repeat: powerful platforms that grew brittle, expensive to renew, and slow to adapt to new protocols. In 2015 we started Apinizer to fix the things legacy gateways could not — multi-protocol mediation, audit at the framework boundary, and a permission model that fits how regulated organizations actually work. In 2018 we rewrote the platform Kubernetes-native: one Manager, many Workers, every policy promotable as code. That is the architecture every customer runs today — and the foundation on top of which the AI Gateway, MCP governance, and agent-to-agent registry now ship. [Read the long version](https://apinizer.com/company/about) · [Why Apinizer](https://apinizer.com/why-apinizer) --- ## Milestones - **2015 — Apinizer founded.** Middleware consultants leave the legacy stack to build a modern, multi-protocol gateway. - **2018 — Kubernetes-native rewrite.** Manager + Worker topology ships. First Tier-1 bank moves production traffic onto the platform. - **2021 — Developer Portal + APIops.** Try-it-out, SDKs, monetization, and Git-driven manifests land in the same release line. - **2024 — 100+ organizations in production.** Cross-sector adoption — banking, government, defense, telecom, energy — all on the same release line. - **2026 — AI Gateway shipped.** Multi-LLM routing, MCP governance, A2A registry, and prompt firewalls — same Manager, same audit. --- ## What we believe Four principles. Every release. - **Audit is not optional** — Every read, write, and deploy is captured at the framework boundary. Bypass is rejected by design, not by convention. - **Sovereign by default** — The platform runs on the customer's Kubernetes. No call home, no hidden cloud dependency. Air-gap is supported, not bolted on. - **One gateway for human and agent traffic** — REST, SOAP, gRPC, WebSocket, GraphQL — and now LLM, MCP, and agent-to-agent. Same audit, same identity, same observability. - **Built where regulation lives** — Defaults reflect what auditors and regulators actually want to see — BDDK, KVKK, GDPR, PSD2, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001. --- ## Picked over the giants Customers switch to Apinizer from IBM, Broadcom, Kong, and modular OSS stacks. - **Replacing IBM** (DataPower, API Connect) — 60–70% lower 5-year TCO - **Replacing Broadcom** (Layer7) — 55–65% lower 5-year TCO - **Replacing Kong** (OSS + Enterprise) — Single license, every module included - **Replacing modular OSS** (Tyk, Gravitee, APISIX) — No Dashboard, Portal, or Cockpit upsell [See the full comparison](https://apinizer.com/why-apinizer) · [Explore the suite](https://apinizer.com/products) --- ## How we operate A small team, a long release line, a local SLA. - **Four-month release cadence** — Three majors a year. Patches stay on the current major. No surprise rewrites, no end-of-life surprises mid-contract. - **Customer-engineered roadmap** — Every major release is shaped by the customers who ship on Apinizer — auditors, platform leads, integration architects. - **24/7 local enterprise support** — The team that ships the platform is the team that picks up the phone. Engineers on call — not a routed contact center. --- ## Keep reading - **About** — How Apinizer started, what we believe, and the principles behind every release. (https://apinizer.com/company/about) - **Customers** — The 100+ organizations running Apinizer in production — banks, ministries, defense, telecom. (https://apinizer.com/company/customers) - **Contact** — Talk to sales, support, or partnerships. We respond within one business day. (https://apinizer.com/company/contact) --- ## Talk to us A 30-minute tour of Manager, Worker, Portal, and AI Gateway on a Kubernetes of your choice. [Request a demo](https://calendly.com/apinizer/15min) · [See customers](https://apinizer.com/company/customers) --- ## Links - Products: https://apinizer.com/products - AI Gateway: https://apinizer.com/products/ai-gateway - Solutions: https://apinizer.com/solutions - Pricing: https://apinizer.com/pricing - Developers: https://apinizer.com/developers - Documentation: https://docs.apinizer.com/index-en - Blog: https://apinizer.com/blog - Contact: https://apinizer.com/company/contact © 2026 Apinizer. All rights reserved.