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 #25 with an average rating of 8.5. Kong Gateway Enterprise holds a 7.1% 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

6,455 Views
6,455 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Kong Konnect

Read 2 Kong Konnect reviews

550 Views
550 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect

September 2025

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Helped 868,706 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

25th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.1%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 1.0%, up from 0.1% 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	7.1%
Kong Konnect	1.0%
Other	91.9%

API Management

Featured Reviews

Sudhanshu Dev

Senior Principal DevOps Engineer at barq

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…

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

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

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

"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."

"The solution provides good performance."

"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."

"In terms of stability, the tool's team has made some good efforts, and my company is very happy with the product's approach."

"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

"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 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."

"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."

"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."

"They could focus more on pricing."

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

"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

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

"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

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

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

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

"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."

"The licensing is expensive."

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

"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance 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?

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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Konnect?

The pricing deserves a high rating for consideration. Cost was the reason we stopped using it. Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kong Konnect?

Pricing might be a topic to consider regarding improvements. I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country itself.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Kong Konnect?

The clients mainly were using Proofpoint for email security, which is the primary use case. We have used Proofpoint for email security.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

IBM API Connect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Axway AMPLIFY API Management vs Kong Konnect

Compared 7% of the time

SwaggerHub vs Kong Konnect

Compared 5% of the time

More Kong Konnect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

September 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

API Management

August 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

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Kong Konnect

September 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: September 2025.

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