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IBM DataPower Gateway 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (12th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd)
Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
5th
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 August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.1%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
Sudhanshu Dev - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom plugin capability with enhanced high traffic handling and lightweight performance
We use Kong for our API gateway, handling all public traffic. It is an open-source tool, and even though we are a startup, it provides us with stability without incurring high costs initially Kong has helped us by performing smoothly even when we receive millions of requests, which prevents any…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The solution is stable."
"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"Kong's most valuable features are its lightweight performance when handling millions of requests and the ability to write custom plugins to enhance security, such as end-to-end encryption, even in the open-source version."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"The solution provides good performance."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"There are a few features that I like about Kong when it comes to authentication and authorization. Specifically, being able to use Kong for role-based access control (RBAC), and then further being able to integrate the RBAC mechanism with our enterprise directory, was very useful."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
 

Cons

"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"Traceability could be improved, especially for business operations. The traceability of the transactions could be an improvement point for DataPower to work on. It would be better if they provided JSON support. JSON protocol data has changed format. It started performing internal transformation to JSONx. This might be an additional complexity."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"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."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There should be an easier way to integrate with other solutions, even though it's the same API solution layer. Comparability will be a good improvement."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"The licensing is expensive."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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?
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 ...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.