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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Azure API Management
Ranking in API Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.6%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 18.5%, down from 19.7% 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.
Rajiv Bala Balasubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages and monetizes API
It is a scalable solution. You can add more computing power to your APM gateway. It also gives you the ability to have VNet integrations with your on-prem. It is one of the leading products in the API management space. It is not just software for users but software to handle requests. For example, for a B2C e-commerce store, all requests that users make from within the store pass through this API gateway. So it is defined by the number of requests to the API gateway, not by the number of actual users who use it. If you look at the number of requests, it would be a lot from all the different systems we have within Pampers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"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."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"The solution provides good performance."
"Ease of integration into the entire Microsoft environment."
"The tool helps to manage APIs."
"What I like most about Microsoft Azure API Management is that it's flexible and user-friendly. The solution also has rich documentation and guides available, so users can configure and use it."
"The product gives API gateway-related features, like throttling, which are easy to use and low-code/no-code."
"I have found this solution to be easy to configure, simple to use, and flexible."
"It's very well integrated with the Azure environment."
"It's easier to use and has more features than Google."
"It seems quite good so far. It handles our current workload well, and I'm optimistic it can scale effectively as our needs grow."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"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 ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Maybe the customization could be a bit better."
"They're trying to implement versioning and trying to be able to manage different versions of your API all at the same time, but they're not doing that just quite right yet."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"If I compare this solution to others I have used in other phases of my life, having APIM being an Azure resource, it is easy to configure and deploy. However, this conversely reduced the flexibility. The difficulty is how do we configure it in a manner that a larger enterprise would probably want it to be. This creates a bit more complexity, working around the constraints of the resource itself. If comparing it to other solutions, it is more of a legacy design with an older approach. The various level components are still around resembling an on-premise type of design similar to other solutions, such as Apigee or Mulesoft. They are still predominantly carrying some legacy design. Which might be suited for organizations where they have a more complex network layout. APIM is easy to deploy, but on the other side of that, it is constrained to how Azure has designed it to be."
"The product's navigation feature needs enhancement."
"The licensing part of Microsoft is always higher than other platforms, like Amazon services and other cloud services. Microsoft should work on reducing the cost."
"It would be better if it were easier to transition to Azure from JIRA. For example, different nomenclature must be performed when you shift to Azure from JIRA. JIRA's storage, tasks, and ethics are treated differently from Azure. Here they might become functions, which is not an option in JIRA because that nomenclature difference is there. If someone has to get into the nomenclature, then there can be different tasks from clients, and here, they may be treated as functions. JIRA has sub-tasks, but sub-tasks don't exist in Azure. The nomenclature and the linking between ethics and a function and a story are different, and people may have to learn to adapt to the new nomenclature."
"I could that the UI could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"The licensing is expensive."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"It's an expensive solution"
"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure API Management is publicly available and goes from a developer edition that costs $26 to $30 per month. It may have changed, but it's in the neighborhood of $30 per month. I believe there's also the enterprise edition, which is highly capable and costs $2,500 per month."
"Since this is a cloud-based solution you have to abide by those financial limits, this creates some different challenges compared to other solutions."
"Azure is a pay-as-you-go model. You build out your virtual environment and pay a monthly price depending on CPU cores, storage, etc."
"We are paying standard fees to use Microsoft Azure API Management."
"Since everyone is isocentric here, it is reasonable for me."
"We pay for a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance 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...
How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.