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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
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (6th), 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 March 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 6.3%, up from 6.2% 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

"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"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."
"In terms of stability, the tool's team has made some good efforts, and my company is very happy with the product's approach."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"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 solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"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 most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
 

Cons

"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"The DCDR process should be less complex."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"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."
"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"Its support services could be better."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"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 tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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."
"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"It's expensive when you compare it with others."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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.
839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.