12 things an API Gateway can do for your application:

✅ Single entry point for incoming requests.

✅ Parameter Validation for the various attributes within the HTTP request

✅ Whitelist checks to allow or deny requests based on pre-defined rules

✅ Authentication and authorization by talking to an identity provider

✅ Rate Limiting requests based on application-defined rules and reject requests if the limit is violated.

✅ Route the requests to the relevant service based on path-matching.

✅ Service Discovery by contacting the service registry and finding the appropriate service instances.

✅ Request transformation from one protocol to another if needed. For example, REST to gRPC and vice-versa.

✅ Handling errors for some basic issues

✅ Circuit breakers for preventing cascading failures and providing fallback responses to the client

✅ Caching common responses

✅ Logging request data and error data for efficient monitoring.