IBM API Connect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

IBM and Kong are both solutions in the API Management category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while Kong is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 6.3% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Kong users who would recommend it.

IBM API Connect

Read 75 IBM API Connect reviews

9,857 Views
7,484 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 24 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

9,781 Views
7,595 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM API Connect

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM API Connect and Kong Gateway Enterprise are key players in the API management market. While IBM API Connect is notable for its robust security integration and advanced features, Kong Gateway Enterprise is valued for its plugin architecture and excellent performance.

Features: IBM API Connect offers robust security features, integration with IBM DataPower, and advanced analytics capabilities. It provides comprehensive environments for API development and a customizable developer portal. Kong Gateway Enterprise includes a plugin-based architecture, excellent plugin support, and strong integration abilities with various tools. It also features role-based access control and effective rate limiting.

Room for Improvement: IBM API Connect needs better integration with other platforms, improved stability, and enhanced support documentation. Users desire more customization options and streamlined administrative processes. Kong Gateway Enterprise could improve its pricing structure, developer portals, customer support, and scaling processes, alongside enhanced traffic analysis features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM API Connect supports varied deployment options, including on-premises, private and public clouds, and hybrid environments. While it offers comprehensive support, users report occasional delays and document deficiencies. Kong Gateway Enterprise offers flexible deployment across multiple environments, with generally positive support experiences although response times and costs are noted concerns.

Pricing and ROI: IBM API Connect is often viewed as costly, particularly for smaller implementations, yet it offers substantial ROI due to its extensive features. It provides on-premises and cloud-based pricing models, typically on a subscription basis. Kong Gateway Enterprise presents competitive pricing through its open-source version, but the enterprise edition has high costs that may not favor startups, although its functionality justifies its value for larger deployments.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect 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

IBM API Connect

Ranking in API Management

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)

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 IBM API Connect is 6.3%, up from 6.2% 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

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan

Solutions Architect at Synechron

Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features

While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.

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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.

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 functionalities on offer are very good."

"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to distribute work among our API developers, so we don't have to do all the work as IBM API Connect administrators and IBM DataPower administrators."

"It gives a holistic environment for us to set up the APIs and that's the main value that it adds. It gives end to end for us."

"The most valuable features are stability and security."

"Using API Connect allows us to quickly create proxy APIs and saves time on end-to-end testing, which lets us deliver quickly to clients."

"The solution offers a pretty good SLA."

"WSRR is a powerful component for getting the endpoints."

"This product is well integrated with other products. Its ability to interact with IBM Secure Gateway and other integration products is the core feature. Also, the lead time to put it into production is relatively short ."

More IBM API Connect pros

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

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

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

"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."

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

"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."

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

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

Cons

"The installation process could use improvement. I hope that in the next release, the installation process is easier."

"The documentation needs to be a bit better."

"It would be helpful to have access monitoring."

"The integration of an API gateway that implements the sidecar pattern, which can be deployed in cloud applications, and expose the microservices directly in each pod, this can be more decentralized components."

"The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side."

"Like any typical IBM infrastructure setup, you need to learn to set it up yourself. It's not one of those simple zip files or an archive unzip and you're up and running in some few minutes. Knowledge to set it up is key."

"The automation and the simplicity could be improved."

"Our main pain points are in these two areas: creating a better developer portal and improving stability in terms of synchronization and monetization."

More IBM API Connect cons

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

"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."

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

"The developer portal needs to be improved."

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

"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."

"They could focus more on pricing."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."

"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."

"The price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."

"I haven't seen anyone go from on-premise to the cloud. In fact, I am seeing people go from the cloud to on-premise because the costs can quickly grow on the cloud."

"It is a pretty expensive tool."

"It is quite an expensive product."

"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."

"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."

More IBM API Connect pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The licensing is expensive."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software 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

What do you like most about IBM API Connect?

Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?

Price depends on many factors like size of the deal, competitive factors, timing, customer profile or where the pricing for API Calls is very competitive comparing to any of the leader players.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?

The only downside where improvements are needed is probably on the licensing side. Scalability is an issue with IBM API Connect, making it an area where improvements are required.

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

IBM DataPower Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 26% of the time

Apigee vs IBM API Connect

Compared 21% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM API Connect

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs IBM API Connect

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM API Connect 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

Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 8% of the time

Kong Konnect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect

January 2025

Download IBM API Connect product report

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

January 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Overview

IBM API Connect facilitates API management and integration in the financial sector. Companies use it to expose, secure, and manage APIs for banking, insurance, and fintech, deploying it on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution.

IBM API Connect focuses on creating and monetizing APIs while enabling seamless transactions and integration with third-party services. It is vital for compliance with regulations and enhances external communication among institutions. With deployment options suitable for different environments, it supports centralized gateway management, robust security features, and comprehensive API lifecycle management. Users benefit from powerful analytics, user-friendly interfaces, and high performance with capabilities in message transformation and efficient monitoring.

What are the most important features?

Centralized Gateway: Manages all APIs through a single entry point.
Robust Security: Ensures API protection with advanced security measures.
Comprehensive API Lifecycle Management: Covers creation, deployment, and retirement of APIs.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies API creation and management tasks.
Powerful Analytics: Provides insights into API usage and performance.
Seamless Integration: Connects easily with third-party services and internal systems.
Flexible Deployment Options: Supports on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
High Performance: Optimizes API performance and reduces latency.
Message Transformation: Manipulates and formats messages between different systems.
Visualization Tools: Enables clear and detailed views of API usage statistics.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

API Monetization: Generates additional revenue streams from APIs.
Enhanced Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry regulations and standards.
Improved External Communication: Facilitates integration and communication among financial institutions.
Technical Support: Benefit from reliable customer support and easy configuration.
Deployment Flexibility: Choose from on-premises, cloud, or hybrid options.

IBM API Connect is extensively implemented in the financial sector, enabling banking, insurance, and fintech services to manage APIs efficiently. Companies use it to ensure secure transactions, integration with third-party services, and compliance with regulatory standards. Its deployment flexibility accommodates different infrastructure needs, making it suitable for a wide range of financial applications.

IBM

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

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM API Connect vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

January 2025

Free Report: IBM API Connect vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise

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