Disclosed are a distributed application programming interface (API) proxy system and an apparatus and method for managing traffic in the system. The apparatus for managing API traffic includes a traffic information collection unit configured to collect traffic information from a plurality of API proxies distributed to a plurality of networked apparatuses such that physical resources are abstracted to provide access to the abstracted physical resources and a traffic optimization unit configured to generate control information for decreasing communication traffic of at least one of the plurality of API proxies based on the collected traffic information and deliver the generated control information to the plurality of API proxies.