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IBM API Connect vs Kong Konnect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
5.5
IBM API Connect enhances efficiency and flexibility, reducing service exposure time and enabling data monetization with significant ROI improvements.
Sentiment score
4.9
Kong Konnect enhances API performance by improving security, reducing costs, and accelerating deployment, yielding faster ROI for users.
Reducing development hours from eighty to four for an API was possible due to reusing existing scripts from DataPower.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
I have seen a return on investment from using IBM API Connect, as we created multiple plans based on customer usage.
Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Time saved is a relevant metric; it used to take us a week, but now it takes us only a day.
Lead Software Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I have seen a return on investment with Kong Konnect, as it helps manage security very well, allows for faster API deployments saving developer time, and reduces salary costs with better uptime and minimal downtime, thus preventing potential business loss.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM API Connect support is knowledgeable and engaging but can be slow and documentation is lacking, rated 7-9/10.
Sentiment score
6.8
Kong Konnect's customer service is highly praised for prompt response times, satisfactory technical assistance, and efficient performance.
Support is excellent when it comes to APIC.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
Support is extremely good, especially with Sev 1 issues.
Software Engineer IV at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It was frustrating that we almost could not install it by ourselves because some information I will never find because IBM keeps it.
DB A Sysadmin Devops Software Ag Adabas/Natural/Ibm Entire X Webmethods at Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT
Technical support from Proofpoint was absolutely excellent.
Senior Software Engineer at Netenrich
When I raise an incident or a support ticket, it gets answered in four hours.
API Technical Architect at Independent API Consultant
They offer twenty-four-hour support with SLA-based response times.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect offers scalability and flexibility in cloud environments, despite higher costs and challenges in older versions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Kong Konnect ensures scalable, flexible gateway management with central governance, supporting both managed and self-hosted deployment options.
When you have Kubernetes on cloud or on-premise, scalability is easy.
DB A Sysadmin Devops Software Ag Adabas/Natural/Ibm Entire X Webmethods at Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT
With container versions, scaling up or down the gateways deployed into pods is a two to three-minute task for the operations team.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
It is distributed among IBM MQ, IBM Ace, IBM DataPower, and IBM API Connect.
Software Engineer IV at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The platform is fully scalable, providing various ways to manage data planes or runtimes.
IT Soulutoin Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Kong Konnect's scalability is very high, handles growth well, and since it is a stateless gateway, it scales easily in Kubernetes using horizontal scaling.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
The scalability of Proofpoint was excellent and very scalable.
Senior Software Engineer at Netenrich
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM API Connect stability has improved significantly since 2018, but some users still experience minor issues and synchronization needs.
Sentiment score
7.5
Kong Konnect is praised for its exceptional stability, reliability, and uninterrupted performance, delivering fast and robust experiences.
The runtime engine for the APIC Gateway is still a DataPower component, which has been stable in the industry for about fifteen years.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
If it is functioning well, you won't have a bad experience and your application becomes more reliable.
Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
IBM API Connect was very stable.
DB A Sysadmin Devops Software Ag Adabas/Natural/Ibm Entire X Webmethods at Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT
It was very fast, and we did not experience any interruptions.
Senior Software Engineer at Netenrich
Kong Konnect is very stable with no issues regarding reliability in my experience.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Room For Improvement

IBM API Connect needs better monitoring, integration, user experience, and DevOps tools, while facing complaints about cost and complexity.
Kong Konnect documentation and UI need improvement; setup is complex, pricing unclear, and enterprise features restricted to premium tiers.
Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
You need to know when traffic peaks, so use auto-scaling when traffic comes.
Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Connectivity to MQ is not available in IBM API Connect.
Software Engineer IV at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The licensing model could be simplified, especially in how they charge and track usage.
IT Soulutoin Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When comparing documentation, Kong's documentation is not on par with Google, Amazon, or other cloud providers.
API Technical Architect at Independent API Consultant
Token integration presents challenges and has implementation complexities that need addressing.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Setup Cost

IBM API Connect offers tiered pricing with robust features, seen as cost-effective despite higher costs compared to competitors.
Choose Kong vendors over marketplaces for clearer pricing, as unclear models may lead to potentially high costs.
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances.
Senior Software Engineer at Netenrich
While the pricing model isn't very clear on how usage is tracked, the initial cost and setup for using Kong Konnect are reasonable.
IT Soulutoin Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I purchase it from Kong vendors, not from the cloud marketplace because the cloud marketplace has a limitation on the number of API services it supports.
API Technical Architect at Independent API Consultant
 

Valuable Features

IBM API Connect offers comprehensive API lifecycle management with user-friendly development, security, analytics, and cloud integration features.
Kong Konnect offers central API control, robust security, scalability, seamless CI/CD integration, and supports Kubernetes with flexible deployment.
It offers significant development efficiency, reducing man-hours from eighty to four when creating APIs.
Software Engineer IV at Royal Cyber Inc.
We can add some policies to provide extra security, protect your backend, validate the consumers, and analyze based on the traffic limit to throw things out.
Works at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
IBM API Connect has a designer and CLI features which can be used to completely automate the API.
Software Engineer IV at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The documentation is excellent, and it includes a developer portal, which helps create a common distribution channel for APIs within and outside the enterprise.
IT Soulutoin Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When I mention scalability, it means that when we experience peak traffic, Kong made it easy for us to scale and spawn new machines.
Lead Software Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The security features of Kong Konnect have helped my team mainly by allowing us to use auth and JWT for applications needing external identity provider authentications, such as LDAP or other authentication providers that need to be connected to back-end applications.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (13th)
Kong Konnect
Ranking in API Management
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 4.5%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM API Connect4.5%
Kong Konnect1.0%
Other94.5%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

ME
DB A Sysadmin Devops Software Ag Adabas/Natural/Ibm Entire X Webmethods at Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT
API management has strengthened security and monitoring but still needs better support and tooling
There are areas of IBM API Connect that need to be improved. I want what Gravitee made, which is much better. Gravitee made many samples for different use cases. First of all, they made examples of use cases, codes, and what the module expects and what the module returns for multiple examples and use cases inside the development. I do not even have to go to the documentation website because everything is included inside the tool when I work on it. This is great, in fact. IBM API Connect should show examples. One other thing is the support. The support of IBM is in India. Every time I want to ask something, they say they need logs, they want this, they want that. Gravitee API asks me to explain the problem without asking a thousand times as if it is a request for a green card in the USA. Then they really explain quickly. IBM is a big company, so everything is standardized with the approach of "You do that, you do that, you request that. If you do not have that, you do not reply to the client." Clients want flexibility today, even if it is a huge company. A stressed client is a client that will want to change to other flexible solutions. When everything is fine, we do not care, but when there is stress and problems, that is when the customer of IBM evaluates the tool really. It is when there are problems. IBM makes a lot of efforts on sales and technical sales, and then that is it.
Rajeshk Kumar Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
Central control of microservices APIs has improved security and simplifies cloud deployments
The best features Kong Konnect offers include central control for all APIs, better security with auth, OAuth, JWT, very easy traffic management, and it is very helpful in Kubernetes and OpenShift clusters. It is also lightweight, super-fast, and allows for easy integration with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Tekton, or Argo CD. The security features of Kong Konnect have helped my team mainly by allowing us to use auth and JWT for applications needing external identity provider authentications, such as LDAP or other authentication providers that need to be connected to back-end applications, which we can easily integrate using Kong Konnect with those identity providers for API integrations.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise62
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
I do not handle the pricing, setup cost, and licensing details.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
There are areas of IBM API Connect that need to be improved. I want what Gravitee made, which is much better. Gravitee made many samples for different use cases. First of all, they made examples of...
What is your primary use case for IBM API Connect?
The usual use cases for IBM API Connect that I worked with mostly involved three things: security, monitoring, and message control. The purpose was to address these areas, though there was one feat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Konnect?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing indicates that licensing is a bit high in comparison.
What needs improvement with Kong Konnect?
I wish Kong Konnect could improve by having a built-in notification system whenever any APIs get pinged so that we can receive alerts and send them to the developer.
What is your primary use case for Kong Konnect?
I use Kong Konnect most often as a current gateway. A specific example of how I use Kong Konnect as a current gateway involves onboarding microservices into Kong Konnect where we pass the host map ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Kong Konnect and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.