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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 May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.7%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 17.9%, down from 19.8% 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

"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"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."
"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."
"I like API Management's sandbox feature. It's an environment where you can test out the API before putting it into production and connecting it to a live environment."
"We use this solution for API rate limiting and for its security features against DDoS."
"The initial setup is not that complex, but there are certain challenges."
"We use Microsoft due to the stability of the company."
"The integration process is very easy, which is crucial for our organization."
"Most of the features are valuable to me."
"Azure API is scalable."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"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."
"The integration with other API gateways is where they might try to improve."
"One of the most important improvements for us would be if it supported the HTTP/3 version and new protocol over a quick connection."
"It can be quite complex, somewhat lacking in flexibility."
"Documentations for implementing certain product features are very difficult to find"
"The product needs to introduce a developer portal."
"From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance."
"The portal where we publish the APIs could be improved. Maybe this is because we didn't configure it. It is quite easy to bypass API management because we have a lot of information shared on the portal, where we publish our APIs. I worry there is potential for a security breach in the API publishing. There needs to be more security available on terms of the way we publish them."
"Maybe the customization could be a bit better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"It's an expensive solution"
"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."
"Microsoft is competitively priced."
"There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"It's being paid monthly."
"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"This is an expensive solution."
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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.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.