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 #6 with an average rating of 7.7, while Kong Konnect is ranked #37. Kong Gateway Enterprise holds a 6.7% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong Konnect’s 0.7% 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

8,128 Views
6,310 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Kong Konnect

Read 1 Kong Konnect review

292 Views
268 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 what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in API Management.

To learn more, read our detailed API Management Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

API Management

May 2025

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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

6th

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

37th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.7%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 0.7%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

AmitKanodia

Cloud & Integration CoE Head at Capgemini

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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Siddharth-Shanakr

IT Soulutoin Expert at Siemens Industry

Deploy and manage API solutions efficiently with centralized hybrid systems

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. Additionally, the licensing model could be simplified, especially in how they charge and track usage. There are also some technical restrictions around exposing GRPC APIs, but I have not explored this yet.

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

"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."

"The features I like include ease of operation and implementation in a cloud environment, the dashboarding features for API statistics, and the user-friendly developer portal."

"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."

"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."

"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."

"Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend Kong Gateway Enterprise to other people."

"The route limiting feature is very valuable."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

"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

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

"The tool needs improvement in UX."

"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."

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

"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."

"The main challenge, in my opinion, is the price. It's difficult to convince our management to approve the budget to purchase it from our vendor. There are no technical problems."

"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 are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."

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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."

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

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

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

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."

"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

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Insurance Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Comparisons

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

IBM API Connect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

May 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

May 2025

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in API Management. Updated: May 2025.

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