Developer Portal Overview
Learn about the API7 Developer Portal, a platform for API providers to publish API products and for developers to discover, subscribe to, and consume APIs.
The API7 Developer Portal is a platform that bridges API providers and API consumers. It allows providers to publish API products and manage developer access, while giving developers a self-service experience to discover, subscribe to, and consume APIs.
Architecture
The Developer Portal consists of two components:
- Provider Portal: Built into the API7 Dashboard, where administrators manage API products, portal settings, developer accounts, and subscription approvals.
- Developer Portal: A standalone web application where developers browse APIs, create applications, manage credentials, and subscribe to API products.
These two components are backed by two separate APIs, and they are not interchangeable:
- The Provider Portal Admin API (default
:7443, the same Dashboard Admin API used elsewhere in API7 Gateway) manages API products, developers, subscription approvals, and portal settings. - The standalone Developer Portal backend (default
:4321, authenticated with a portal token inAuthorization: Bearer a7prt-…) is what the Developer Portal frontend itself calls — it exposes application creation, subscription creation, and credential management. These operations return404on the Provider Portal Admin API.
When an administrator publishes an API product with authentication requirements, the Provider Portal Admin API pushes authentication configuration to the gateway data plane. Developers then use their credentials, managed through the Developer Portal backend, to access APIs through the gateway.
See Manage Applications Programmatically for the full authentication details of the Developer Portal backend, and the Developer Portal API reference for its complete endpoint list.
Key Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| API Products | Curated bundles of API services published for developer consumption, with associated documentation, authentication requirements, and subscription policies. |
| Developers | Users of the Developer Portal who discover, subscribe to, and consume APIs. |
| Applications | Containers that developers create to group subscriptions and credentials for a specific project or use case. |
| Subscriptions | Relationships between developer applications and API products that grant access to consume APIs. |
| Credentials | Authentication tokens (API keys, basic auth, or OAuth clients) that developers use to authenticate API requests. |
Use Cases
The Developer Portal supports three primary deployment models:
- Internal API Portal: Share APIs within your organization. Developers authenticate using corporate SSO, and API products are scoped to internal services.
- Partner API Portal: Expose APIs to trusted partners with controlled access. Use SSO or email-based registration with administrative approval.
- Public API Portal: Offer APIs to external developers through a public-facing portal with self-registration and subscription management.
You can run multiple portal instances simultaneously, each serving a different audience with distinct API product catalogs and access policies.
Provider vs. Developer Workflows
| Aspect | Provider (Admin) | Developer |
|---|---|---|
| Access point | API7 Dashboard | Standalone Developer Portal |
| Key actions | Create API products, manage developers, approve subscriptions, configure SSO | Browse APIs, create applications, subscribe to products, manage credentials |
| Authentication | API7 Gateway user account | Portal-specific account (email, SSO, or SCIM-provisioned) |
| Customization | Not customizable | Fully customizable (branding, theme, domain) |
Next Steps
- Start a Local Developer Portal for a packaged Docker Compose evaluation.
- Deploy the Developer Portal for Kubernetes, external databases, or a customized deployment.
- Learn about API Products to understand what you can publish.
- Follow the Manage API Products guide to create your first API product.