Microservices- Difference between API Gateway and Load Balancer in Microservices?

API Gateway and Load Balancer are both important components in microservices architectures, but they serve different purposes and have distinct roles.

Here’s a comparison to highlight the differences between API Gateway and Load Balancer:

API Gateway acts as a single entry point for all API requests and provides features such as request routing, rate limiting, authentication, and API versioning and also hide the complexities of the underlying microservices from the client applications.

Load Balancer, on the other hand, is responsible for distributing incoming request across multiple instances of a microservice to improve availability, performance, and scalability. It helps to evenly distribute the workload across multiple instances and ensures that each instance is utilized to its fullest potential.

In this table, we’ve summarized the key differences between API Gateway and Load Balancer, emphasizing their respective functionalities, use cases, and real-time examples in the context of microservices