Third party API support is one of the new features introduced in WSO2 API Manager 4.1.0. Traditionally, the APIs in API Manager are deployed in the API gateway. For instances where the API is deployed elsewhere and there is no requirement to deploy it in the API gateway, third-party APIs can be used. Therefore, the information of the externally deployed API such as the external endpoints and the external developer portal URL (if available) can be exposed to the developers along with a documentation with the use of third-party APIs.

Third-party APIs provide the capability to decouple API deployment from API creation and management flows. All the API types which are currently supported in API Manager can be converted into third-party APIs. Moreover, any API with an Async API definition (even if that particular API type is not inherently supported in API Manager) can also be imported as a third-party APIs.