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IBM DataPower Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), Application Infrastructure (6th), SOA Application Gateways (3rd)
Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.0%, down from 6.8% 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 product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."
"The solution is scalable, our customers are mostly South African banks and they handle mostly transactions with this solution."
"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."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"The most valuable feature is the security appliance, it's very secure."
"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"What I like most is the stability."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"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 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 solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"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."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
 

Cons

"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"Its support services could be better."
"For the workloads that are not too high, appliance is a little bit expensive."
"It is a costly product."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite big for smaller organizations, looking at different types of clients who are virtually assisted in this, I would say it's not really a good product for smaller firms."
"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"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."
"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."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
 

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."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The product is expensive."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"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
31%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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
 

Learn More

 

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: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.