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3scale API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
3scale API Management delivers quick ROI with cost savings and simplicity, ideal for small to medium-sized enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.6
Kong Gateway Enterprise offers scalability, advanced features, and reduces detection time, supporting efficient API delivery with economic benefits.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
3scale API Management's customer support is mixed, with better pre-sales support and technical help but post-purchase challenges.
Sentiment score
6.9
Kong Gateway Enterprise support is helpful and responsive, but users note delays and desire quicker, more capable assistance.
The technical support from Kong Gateway Enterprise would be rated about eight, as we missed local technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
3scale API Management is highly scalable, handling enterprise demands and integrating well into existing technology stacks with high availability.
Sentiment score
7.2
Kong Gateway Enterprise is praised for scalability across applications, but smaller entities face challenges due to resource constraints.
The scalability of this solution would be rated about eight or nine.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
3scale API Management is stable and resource-efficient, rated highly for reliability with no major production issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.9
Kong Gateway Enterprise is stable with few issues, excellent architecture, and recommended strong configuration for optimal performance and versatility.
 

Room For Improvement

Kong Gateway Enterprise needs better pricing, integrations, API management, documentation, customization, support, and AI features for improved user experience.
More plugins for additional integrations would be helpful and openness for traditional development languages, such as .NET, because many enterprises are looking for .NET solutions or incorporating with .NET solutions.
 

Setup Cost

Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing is competitive, especially compared to Apigee, with value dependent on organizational needs and region.
 

Valuable Features

Kong Gateway Enterprise provides scalable, secure API management with integration support, high performance, and adaptability via open-source community backing.
The most valuable features of Kong Gateway Enterprise are its seamless integration with Kubernetes and cloud, many plugins that can be incorporated in a solution, and its incorporation with low-code function systems.
 

Categories and Ranking

3scale API Management
Ranking in API Management
17th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of 3scale API Management is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.7%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

KavitaChavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Lightweight solution but less flexible customization features
It lacks some features, and the product is not that flexible for developers. It's less flexible and rigid. It's not easy to make changes or customize it. One disadvantage is that for customization, it uses liquid templates. However, not everyone is familiar with liquid templates, so if you want to do some customized logging or other tasks, you may need to struggle a lot. Other solutions like IBM API Connect or Apigee use JavaScript, which is more developer-friendly. That's what I found.
AmitKanodia - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script
Kong is meant for north-south communications, so it will be interesting to see what solutions they can come up with in the realms of east-west communications, service-to-service communications, and Zero Trust architecture. I believe that if they can provide for these areas, then they will be able to solve the overall integration and security concerns for microservices architecture in general.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3scale API Management?
I rate the product’s pricing as two out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager was designed with its users in mind. Though it is a reasonably complex piece of software, it is easy to install and upgrade. While there are different things that ...
What do you like most about Kong Enterprise?
The tool's feature that I find most beneficial is rate limiting. In our usage, especially in the financial sector, we prioritize limiting API usage. This is crucial because we provide APIs to other...
What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?
The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful. We use an open-source tool called Konga for basic dashboard needs, but it lacks support. It would be bette...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Victor Ops, Coca Cola, The Telegraph, Skava, Orange, Typeform
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about 3scale API Management vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.