Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Kong Konnect comparison

Kong Gateway Enterprise and Kong Konnect are both solutions in the API Management category. Kong Gateway Enterprise is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.9, while Kong Konnect is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.8. Kong Gateway Enterprise holds a 5.9% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong Konnect’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Kong Gateway Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Kong Konnect users who would recommend it.

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 25 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

5,871 Views
5,871 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Kong Konnect

Read 5 Kong Konnect reviews

740 Views
718 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Kong Konnect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kong Gateway Enterprise and Kong Konnect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two API Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Ranking in API Management

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kong Konnect

Ranking in API Management

22nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

5.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Observability (71st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 5.9%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Kong Gateway Enterprise	5.9%
Kong Konnect	1.0%
Other	93.1%

API Management

Featured Reviews

Evgeny Shkard

Enterprise Architect at El Al

Seamless integration and efficient security boost API management capabilities

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. I mostly missed local resellers or partners that we could use within our enterprise, because it was difficult for some tech personnel to work with remote tech support.

Read full review

Shahnawaz_Alam

Senior Software Engineer at Netenrich

Significant email security benefits combined with efficient spam filtering, yet cost hinders long-term use

The integration with our on-prem Exchange was very straightforward; the only thing we did was redirect all email traffic over Proofpoint, so Proofpoint did everything independently, and we were very happy. I am still receiving emails from Proofpoint's site. Not using it at the moment, but in the short term we will be tackling that portion of the product as well. We cannot provide feedback regarding Dynamics because we are not experienced enough at the moment; we have initiatives going on but did not get enough feedback from end users. Based on my overall experience with Proofpoint, considering the cost perspective, I would rate it a 7 out of 10.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."

"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."

"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."

"The solution provides good performance."

"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."

"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."

"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."

"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."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

"Kong Konnect has positively impacted our organization by securing our APIs, which is one of the main concerns for us, and securing our APIs has benefited our organization by improving compliance and reducing incidents."

"Kong Konnect has positively impacted my organization by making our development easier and helping us push new routes to our current customers."

"Their tech support is excellent; when I raise an incident or a support ticket, it gets answered in four hours."

"Technical support from Proofpoint was absolutely excellent."

"The documentation is excellent, and it includes a developer portal, which helps create a common distribution channel for APIs within and outside the enterprise."

Cons

"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."

"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."

"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."

"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."

"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."

"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."

"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."

"The software version upgrade process should be improved."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

"Kong Konnect's RBAC needs to evolve more, as they currently offer only one or two levels of RBAC in terms of organization and teams."

"When comparing documentation, Kong's documentation is not on par with Google, Amazon, or other cloud providers."

"Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances."

"Kong Konnect needs improvement in the UI."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."

"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."

"The licensing is expensive."

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."

"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."

"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Outsourcing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Large Enterprise	19

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 ...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Konnect

Compared 10% of the time

Axway AMPLIFY API Management vs Kong Konnect

Compared 7% of the time

SwaggerHub vs Kong Konnect

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Konnect

Compared 6% of the time

More Kong Konnect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

January 2026

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

Kong Konnect

January 2026

Download Kong Konnect product report

Overview

Kong delivers a next generation API platform built for modern architectures. With a lightnight-fast, lightweight, and flexible core, Kong delivers sub-millisecond latency across all your services. Kong's is deployment-, vendor-, and pattern-agnostic, allowing you to run your services how you want, where you want, and with who you want - from baremetal to cloud, monolith to microservices, service mesh, and beyond.

Kong

Kong Konnect facilitates efficient management and integration of APIs, providing a streamlined experience for developers to manage their services with high scalability.

Kong Konnect is a comprehensive platform tailored for API development and management. It offers an intuitive interface that simplifies the process of connecting, managing, and securing APIs. Organizations benefit from its scalable architecture, ensuring it meets diverse operational demands and optimizes service delivery, supporting a robust API ecosystem that aligns with modern development practices.

What are the key features of Kong Konnect?

API Gateway: Efficiently handles routing, transformations, and more for effective API management.
Security Management: Includes authentication and traffic control to protect data.
Analytics and Monitoring: Provides insights into API usage and performance metrics.
Developer Portals: Offers customizable portals for developer engagement and onboarding.
Plugin Architecture: Extends functionality through a rich library of plugins.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces operational costs through streamlined API processes.
Scalability: Easily adapts to increased API traffic without performance losses.
Improved Security: Enhances data protection through advanced security features.
Enhanced Developer Productivity: Accelerates development timelines with easy-to-use tools.
Better User Engagement: Improves collaboration through robust developer support.

In tech industries, Kong Konnect is often implemented to advance cloud-native applications by enhancing API connectivity and security. Financial services utilize it to ensure compliance and secure data sharing. Telecommunications deploy it to handle high data throughput efficiently.

Kong

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect

December 2025

Free Report: Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect

Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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