Apiary vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

Oracle and Kong are both solutions in the API Management category. Oracle is ranked #36, while Kong is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.6. Oracle holds a 0.3% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong’s 6.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Kong users who would recommend it.

Apiary

Read 4 Apiary reviews

397 Views
269 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 24 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

8,512 Views
6,571 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Apiary

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Apiary and Kong Gateway Enterprise compete in the API management market. While Apiary is noted for its cost-effectiveness and strong support, Kong Gateway Enterprise is considered superior for its advanced features, making it a preferred option for those valuing scalability and security.

Features: Apiary provides API documentation and collaboration tools, GitHub integration for version control, and supports multiple API notations like Swagger. Kong Gateway Enterprise offers robust scalability, plugin-based network services, and seamless integration capabilities, essential for managing and securing microservices.

Room for Improvement: Apiary could benefit from enhanced scalability and more advanced security features. Adding more role-based control options and improving performance in high-demand environments would further strengthen its offering. Kong Gateway Enterprise could improve initial deployment complexity, simplify its configuration process, and offer more straightforward user interface options for less technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Apiary is praised for its easy integration and responsive support, ensuring smooth deployment for users. Kong Gateway Enterprise, while challenging to deploy, compensates with extensive documentation and versatility across on-premises and cloud environments, appealing to enterprise needs. Its adaptability allows integration into diverse setups.

Pricing and ROI: Apiary's relatively low setup costs offer a quick ROI, particularly for organizations focused on improving API development processes efficiently. In contrast, Kong Gateway Enterprise requires a higher initial investment but delivers substantial long-term ROI through its comprehensive features and scalability, aligning with the needs of larger organizations seeking advanced management capabilities.

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

Buyer's Guide

Apiary vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

March 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

Apiary

Ranking in API Management

36th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apiary is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.6%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

Phil Wilkins

Enterprise Integration Architect at Capgemini

The ability to configure rules to check for consistency has helped

Apiary provides a free tier of the platform which allows a small group of developers to collaborate easily on the design of open source APIs. In addition to this, it provides mock endpoints allowing people to experiment with the API without depending or having to stand up a real backend. With our clients, using Apiary allows us to very quickly pull together an API definition (particularly when using API Blueprint). The whole API design process for the simpler use cases can be done in a relatively short workshop which makes it a lot easier to agree, publish, version-manage an API definition with suitable documentation. This can then be evolved and enhanced (particularly in the documentation aspects). With the ability to support Swagger (Open API v2 and introducing/ed support for v3) and API Blueprint makes it a very versatile tool.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the generation of mock services very useful, especially when demonstrating for new consumers."

"In two years, there was one time the service was down for an hour or so."

"Git integration"

"Quick and easy way to share a new API design with teams."

"I do like the overall performance of the solution."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."

"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 companies and must ensure they adhere to their allocated usage limits. Without rate limiting, there's a risk of excessive usage, which could result in significant costs."

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

"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."

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

"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."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

Cons

"I would like an integrated option to download a Swagger version of the definition."

"The Oracle release cycle is very bad because the patches only update once a year."

"Swagger (OpenAPI Specification) and Blueprint Support"

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"The developer portal needs to be improved."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a free subscription option to start and try the service."

"It is easy to get started with personal (free) accounts, but a subscription is required for additional features."

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

"The licensing is expensive."

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

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

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

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

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Insurance Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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

Comparisons

Postman vs Apiary

Compared 38% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Apiary

Compared 34% of the time

Oracle API Platform Cloud Service vs Apiary

Compared 28% of the time

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Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Kong Konnect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

API Management

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

April 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Overview

Apiary's pioneering APIFlow solution provides the framework and tools for developing application programming interfaces (APIs) that share enterprise services and data and help create modern, cloud-based applications and experiences. APIFlow spans the API creation lifecycle, including design, governance, testing, and documentation, while supporting API Blueprint and OpenAPI industry standardsץ

Oracle

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

Sample Customers

Microsoft, salesforce.com, Bloomberg, GoodData, Viacom, Akamai Technologies, DigitalGlobe

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

Buyer's Guide

Apiary vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

March 2025

Free Report: Apiary vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

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