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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure API Management
Ranking in API Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.6%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 18.5%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

AmitKanodia - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rajiv Bala Balasubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages and monetizes API
It is a scalable solution. You can add more computing power to your APM gateway. It also gives you the ability to have VNet integrations with your on-prem. It is one of the leading products in the API management space. It is not just software for users but software to handle requests. For example, for a B2C e-commerce store, all requests that users make from within the store pass through this API gateway. So it is defined by the number of requests to the API gateway, not by the number of actual users who use it. If you look at the number of requests, it would be a lot from all the different systems we have within Pampers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"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 most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Azure API Management is an API gateway that can be used for different purposes, for example, to monetize APIs."
"It seems quite good so far. It handles our current workload well, and I'm optimistic it can scale effectively as our needs grow."
"It's a very robust tool. So you see that there is a developer portal which can be used by developer or the vendors as well. And other external partners to create keys and manage their own APIs. The other thing is that they have a lot of policies there are too many options within API. So I do the difficult to tell one, but probably I would say, like, proxy sorry. The policies is one of the thing wherein you can just configure the policies and modify the behavior of the APIs."
"Easy to integrate API management platform. It is a stable and scalable solution."
"The stability and performance are good. It is easy to install, and it scales well too."
"Without a doubt, it has a very robust, strong marketplace where we can directly integrate with existing APIs and begin working on those."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure API Management are the easy configuration and deployment with automation."
"The integration with Azure Active Directory is a good security feature for authentication and authorization. There is multifactor authentication. You can also use all of the Azure AD features integrated with API Management."
 

Cons

"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"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."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"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 ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms, as well as increased security."
"In the next release, Azure APIM should include deployment in various environments and CI/CD for deployment."
"They're trying to implement versioning and trying to be able to manage different versions of your API all at the same time, but they're not doing that just quite right yet."
"What would make Microsoft Azure API Management better are more APIs. They keep updating their APIs, but it would be better if the solution had more APIs for the services and more integration with other platforms."
"The solution's data mapping and orchestration are very code-intensive or require callouts to external systems."
"I'd like to have better flexibility and more capabilities."
"Specific to API development, I think Microsoft is still far behind AWS. AWS has grown by leaps and bounds, and Microsoft is a close second. But in terms of features and other stuff they provide, Microsoft's compatibility with publicly available APIs is a little limited. So, that is a little bit of a constraint. But what they provide is good, it's just that they need to build more on their API suite. I think Google is doing a really good job at that."
"Support for GraphQL could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"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 price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"It is an expensive solution, but any API solution will be expensive."
"There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"Azure is a pay-as-you-go model. You build out your virtual environment and pay a monthly price depending on CPU cores, storage, etc."
"Since everyone is isocentric here, it is reasonable for me."
"Azure API Management is the most expensive solution on the market."
"I rate the solution's pricing between three and four, as it could be more competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
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?
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...
How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.