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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.7% 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

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"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."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"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."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"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."
"There should be an easier way to integrate with other solutions, even though it's the same API solution layer. Comparability will be a good improvement."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"They could focus more on pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The product is expensive."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"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."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"The licensing is expensive."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The price could be more flexible for different clients.
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...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.