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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Layer7 API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

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
Layer7 API Management
Ranking in API Management
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.0%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Layer7 API Management is 3.1%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ronald D'Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding
I have mainly implemented using Layer 7 API Management. Some of the major challenges we were able to meet with a quick release to market methodology. Some of the tasks which we achieved for our customers were: 1. Translation service from SOAP to REST and vice versa. 2. API service to DB (Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA) -- Created Swagger APIs that were able to perform CRUD operation to the backend API mentioned above and provided routes to query and get data. 3. Integration with Payment gateway service providers to perform (transaction on behalf of the customer with third-party payment gateway service providers white labeled with our APIs ) -- Followed TMF standards for payment gateway integration with the Telcom world. 4. Orchestration of the API. Build multiple microservers and provided orchestration based on route, path, and data in the request and perform actions that would be communicated with multiple APIs and provide a single consolidated response. 5. Provided API-driven security (Oauth 2.0, JWT, SAML, Basic, and a variety of means) to access the API giving the developer the freedom to concentrate only on application/service/microservice and let the gateway handle the threat. 6. Seamless Mutual Authentication allowed good segregation between APIs in the DMZ and internal network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"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."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"The actual management of APIs is fundamental to us, as we're a heavy API user/provider. So, obviously, a centralised management platform is important."
"The most valuable feature was the gateway because it has a good dashboard which shows all the hits, misses, and issues, how often you are viewing, what was the response time, etc. The gateway was very easy to deploy."
"This improved our organization, because it gives the management data to discuss for the next course of action and it suggests what to work on, as the next thing."
"API Enhanced Portal 4.1 looks very promising. API Gateway policy manager for writing policies is excellent. It is the best in the industry for policy writing."
"Simple to use and easy to develop APIs."
"I work for an information security company. CA API Management is capable of using tokens for authorization to manage access control for the APIs."
"It allows us to keep clear traceability of the changes made in each of our APIs."
"The solution has numerous configuration options to increase security in communication."
 

Cons

"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"Kong Enterprise needs to improve its pricing, which starts at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Pricing should be based on API usage rather than monthly. It should improve its documentation as well."
"They could focus more on pricing."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"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 developer portal needs to fully supported SOAP services (including WSDL publication with security), it would certainly push adoption for us."
"The portal is not the most intuitive and the way things are displayed makes it difficult to find the information we need."
"Needs to work better with DB2 UDB."
"​There is still room for improvement for the CA API Developer Portal. It is still not on par with what the competencies are."
"Provide complete documentation with examples of usage on its build in assertion/function."
"The OTK, however, is a complex upgrade. They tend to change the schemas on the database behind it, between the versions, which can be a pain to have to migrate all of our existing clients from one database schema to the other."
"CA double up portal is a pain. It is something that we are struggling with right now."
"I understand that clients are often concerned about costs. They might be exploring other options due to the high cost associated with our current package."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"The licensing is expensive."
"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."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"I feel that it is costly for medium-sized companies."
"Do not buy piecemeal."
"APIs can be developed to provide security. We can show them in one single pane of glass, such as the CA API Management API Developer Portal. It is there that we can provide the monetization for their APIs and what is happening on third-party applications, like Paytm or BookMyShow."
"If the CA pricing for API management would be a little lower, they would be able to cover a broader market."
"For what we are after, the pricing is okay. It is competitive."
"It's my manager who takes care of the pricing. But I keep on hearing that it's a little pricey, it's on the higher side. That is what he says."
"Licenses are required to operate the product, but I don't know much about the validity periods attached to it."
"The price of Layer7 API Management is too high and should be reduced. However, it is a good solution in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?
Layer7 API Management could be improved in its logging and alert mechanisms. Furthermore, although cloud deployment has been introduced, I am not familiar with all recent updates. In previous versi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.