DigitalRoute has long been a leader in transforming raw usage data into revenue, with its Cloud Edition SaaS platform earning a stellar reputation for reliability and performance. But as they expanded their product portfolio to offer public APIs, the company faced a critical challenge: how to support their new “Usage Metering” feature efficiently, allowing customers to interact with their system via APIs instead of the traditional user interface.
The Turning Point: From Internal to Public APIs
Before KrakenD, DigitalRoute’s system leaned heavily on internal APIs, supported by a custom-built gateway that worked well for backend needs but wasn’t equipped to handle public-facing demands. The shift to public APIs introduced a host of challenges. They needed a solution that could aggregate and transform data from multiple microservices, manage complex workflows, and integrate with Auth0 for secure authentication. Additionally, there was a pressing need for customization and robust documentation to support their fast-moving development cycle, all while adhering to tight delivery timelines.
The Solution: KrakenD Steps In
After a meticulous evaluation process, DigitalRoute chose KrakenD as their API Gateway. KrakenD offered an ideal combination of scalability, flexibility, and speed, addressing all their requirements out of the box while allowing for advanced customizations where needed.
- Automated API documentation: By automating a previously tedious manual process, KrakenD accelerated the delivery of public-facing APIs. The documentation is autogenerated after every commit and published online with no manual intervention.
- Implementation of new features: KrakenD’s plugin system enabled DigitalRoute to introduce custom logging capabilities effortlessly. Having a product with extensibility options was vital.
- Simplified architecture: Tasks previously managed through the UI were now efficiently orchestrated by KrakenD, freeing up resources and improving workflows.
Jonas Brandvik, a senior leader at DigitalRoute, shared, “KrakenD’s support for building custom plugins was a huge deal for us—it allowed us to fill gaps between our requirements and what was provided out of the box”.
Transformative Outcomes
DigitalRoute’s integration with KrakenD yielded impressive results. Within just one to two months, the “Online collection” feature was live, a rapid turnaround that showcased the efficiency of KrakenD’s architecture. Moreover, the company embraced an API-first approach, with KrakenD becoming the backbone for all future public APIs.
During our interview, Michal Gasek, the Lead Architect, said, “KrakenD has been quite instrumental in delivering that feature in a very short time frame. We built it in about one and a half to two months, which is really quick.”.
When challenges arose, KrakenD’s support team provided creative, practical solutions. In Jonas’s words, “The support team gave us really clever solutions for custom endpoints. It was clear they deeply understand their product”.
Finally, the platform’s agility and scalability translated to significant developer velocity. Adding or updating APIs became faster and simpler, empowering the team to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure. The testimonial from the Product Owner, Diksha Sethi, underlines this fact: “The first setup took some time, but once done, adding new APIs and exposing them became super simple.”
The Road Ahead
Buoyed by KrakenD’s success, DigitalRoute is now planning to replace all internal API services with KrakenD, simplifying their architecture even further. This move is expected to fasten development workflows and bolster scalability, setting the stage for future growth.
As Jonas Brandvik aptly summarized, “Don’t reinvent the wheel. With KrakenD, we implemented features like authentication, rate limiting, and custom plugin support without building them from scratch. It saved us time and effort while ensuring scalability.”
DigitalRoute’s partnership with KrakenD has not only redefined their API strategy but also set a new benchmark for delivering high-performance features at scale. The journey is just beginning.
