Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

Google and Kong are both solutions in the API Management category. Google is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1, while Kong is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.6. Google holds a 14.5% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Kong users who would recommend it.

Apigee

Read 86 Apigee reviews

22,229 Views
17,032 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 24 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

9,292 Views
7,184 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Apigee

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Apigee and Kong Gateway Enterprise compete in the API management category. Apigee appears to have the upper hand in analytics and comprehensive features, while Kong excels in flexible integration through its plugin-based structure.

Features: Apigee is renowned for its API management and comprehensive analytics, offering sophisticated tools such as a Drupal-based developer portal with Smart Docs and extensive monetization capabilities. It ensures detailed control over API documentation along with support for numerous analytics dimensions. Kong Gateway Enterprise focuses on integration with its plugin-based architecture, allowing for flexible customization via Lua scripts and effective rate-limiting essential for managing API usage.

Room for Improvement: Apigee has challenges with role-based access management, complex on-premises setups, and high pricing, requiring improvements in predictive analytics and integration ease. Kong Gateway Enterprise could enhance isolated data plans for federated teams, user-friendly interfaces, documentation, and its pricing model.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Apigee offers versatile deployment models across public, private, hybrid clouds, and on-premises. Customer support is generally satisfactory but inconsistent, with some slow response times. Kong Gateway Enterprise provides flexible deployment options for various environments but needs to improve technical support response times and simplify its deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: Apigee generally has higher pricing, particularly challenging for smaller companies, with pricing based on API call volume allowing negotiation. It tends to provide a substantial ROI through its comprehensive API management. Kong Gateway Enterprise, although also perceived as expensive, features a more reasonable pricing structure based on SaaS models and offers a cost-effective entry through its open-source version. Both solutions offer good ROI, but Apigee is viewed as offering more advanced functionality at a higher cost, while Kong provides more accessible entry points.

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

Buyer's Guide

Apigee vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

January 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

Apigee

Ranking in API Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

API Testing Tools (6th)

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Ranking in API Management

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apigee is 14.5%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.1%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

ShawkyFoda

Senior Consultant at Goverment

Provides high visibility and control with good traffic monitoring

Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability. The replication process between Master and Slave for disaster recovery takes too long. Dependencies on analytics impact the performance of the user interface, which should be separate. The complex setup process on-premises, especially with multi-node installations, could also be improved. Additional control in product declarations, based on operations like POST and GET, is needed.

Read full review

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.

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 tool is one of the earliest API management products and is good. It reduces the Time To Market aspects of products."

"The most valuable features are scalability and technical support."

"The pricing is okay."

"The following features are most valuable: API Management, Analytics, Quota, and the Developer Portal."

"Apigee helps with API security and management."

"Anyone with basic knowledge can build an API."

"The most valuable feature of the current version of Apigee, such as Apigee Edge, is that the maintenance and scalability of the service are not our responsibility. As a SaaS platform, Google takes care of it, ensuring the system is stable. Another valuable feature is the ability to customize the platform extensively. We can add JavaScript functionality to cater to any use case that is not available out of the box."

"Apigee has proven to be one of the best of the breed."

More Apigee pros

"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."

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

"The route limiting feature is very valuable."

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

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

"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."

"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

Cons

"I would like to see SOAP services and socket-based connectivity developed."

"Drag and drop of features would be more beneficial, rather than manually working on the configuration and updates."

"I would like to see the monitoring, dashboards, and reports improve."

"When there is an update on a new version or an automatic update, you have to be present and double-check that the update is reflected in the environment with no issues."

"As it is now, the rotation of certificates is a manual task and is something that can be improved."

"I see some lagging in regards to integration capacity"

"I'd like this solution to improve on releasing new features; I'd like it to be more frequent."

"Apigee is more of an entry level solution that does basic things pretty well, but if you want to go more customizable, you want to really look for another solution."

More Apigee cons

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

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

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

"The developer portal needs to be improved."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."

"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."

"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a contract for three years. I don't know the cost."

"Apigee has several different licenses you can obtain depending on your needs."

"The solution is a bit expensive. It's not for organizations in the early stages of their lifecycle but is more suited for mid- to enterprise-level platforms. Pricing varies by deployment model, with SaaS being the cheapest, costing around $100,000 per year for a subscription. For hybrid and on-prem deployments, the price increases. The on-prem model includes a license and additional installation and configuration professional service costs, which can be at least $40,000 to $60,000 for the initial setup. While it's not cheap, it offers long-term value and can be worthwhile."

"Apigee is slightly expensive, but again, it can depend on the type of usage. All things considered, it is slightly expensive."

"It is more expensive when you compare to open-source products or other vendors."

"The current version of Apigee is not too expensive, but we are currently in talks with Google to understand their roadmap for Apigee X. However, we anticipate that with the introduction of Apigee X, the pricing will likely increase."

"It is an expensive solution."

"You do not necessarily pay for the license. The cloud solution is based more on transactions. So, you pay for it either way."

More Apigee pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

Which is better - Apigee or Amazon API Gateway?

Amazon API Gateway is a platform that supports the creation and publication of API for web applications. The platform can support thousands of simultaneous API calls, and it provides monitoring, ma...

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What do you like most about Apigee?

We can customize the dashboard.

See all answers

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

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Apigee

Compared 31% of the time

IBM API Connect vs Apigee

Compared 9% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs Apigee

Compared 8% of the time

Layer7 API Management vs Apigee

Compared 6% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Apigee

Compared 4% of the time

More Apigee Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 15% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

Layer7 API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

IBM API Connect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apigee

February 2025

Download Apigee product report

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

February 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Overview

Apigee is a platform for developing and managing APIs. Apigee offers an interface for your core services by wrapping them with a proxy layer which is then accessed by other developers. With Apigee, you can design and build APIs and then securely share their services and data without exposing any code.

Because app developers make HTTP requests to an API proxy rather than directly to your services, your services are separated from the developers. All the developer needs to know is the URL of the API proxy endpoint, necessary query parameters, authorization credentials (if they exist), and the response data format.

The API proxy isolates the app developer from your backend service. Therefore, you are free to change the service implementation if the public API remains consistent. By maintaining a consistent frontend API, existing client apps will continue to work regardless of changes on the backend.

Key capabilities of the Apigee API management platform include:

Security: Protect APIs, messages, and backends with configurable policies such as OAuth, API key verification, XML/JSON threat protection, and access control.
API gateway: Secure and mediate the traffic between clients and backends, and between a company’s APIs and the developers who use the APIs.
Developer portal: Attract and engage application developers, enabling them to discover, explore, purchase, and test APIs and register to access and use the APIs.
API console: The console helps developers learn and work with APIs.
API lifecycle management: Manage the process of designing, developing, publishing, deploying, and versioning APIs.
Automated documentation: Automate the development of API documentation and software development kits.
Machine learning: Utilize machine learning and analytics to generate actionable insights and reports.

API monitoring: Apigee offers monitoring tools for API troubleshooting, security, and optimization.

Reviews from Real Users:

Apigee stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its rich developer portal, its advanced analytics, and its central monitoring system.

Carlos R., a software architect at Caja Los Andes writes, “The central monitoring feature is the most valuable. It also provides security for the APIs and high availability for our use cases. Apigee is the best product in the industry in comparison to other API management solutions. It helps in fast development, which is a top point. It also supports a lot of industry standards and has excellent documentation.”

An associate vice president at a tech services company notes, “The analytics function and the developer portal are the two valuable features of Apigee. The analytics part is very good, and the developer portal is quite rich in features. The authentication mechanisms are quite easily built into Apigee, which is something that most of the other products have also now started supporting.”

Google

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

Adobe, advance.net, Amadeus, AT&T, Bechtel, Belly, Burberry, Chegg, Citrix, Dell, eBay, Equifax, GameStop, First Data, Globe, HCSC, Intralinks, Kao, Meredith, Mitchell, Orange, Pearson

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

Buyer's Guide

Apigee vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

January 2025

Free Report: Apigee vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

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