Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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
7.8
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

"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"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 Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"Security is the top feature of Azure API Management."
"The solution has overall high performance."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure API Management is the developer portal because it's very quick and easy to get something published."
"It's a very robust tool. So you see that there is a developer portal which can be used by developer or the vendors as well. And other external partners to create keys and manage their own APIs. The other thing is that they have a lot of policies there are too many options within API. So I do the difficult to tell one, but probably I would say, like, proxy sorry. The policies is one of the thing wherein you can just configure the policies and modify the behavior of the APIs."
"The ease of setting up a new solution is the most valuable feature. It's very easy to set up a new solution and to deploy it to production."
"It's really easy to use for simple passthrough APIs."
"API Management does not take long to deploy."
"Microsoft Azure API Management is 90 to 99 percent scalable. We have three instances running in parallel."
 

Cons

"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."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"Previously, our company's cloud services were shut down, and we used to take more time to update services, so such issues are areas where improvements are needed."
"From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance."
"Azure API Management lacks integration capabilities seen in other tools."
"The external policies are impossible to look at and configure."
"The pricing model needs improvement, as some enterprise features are expensive."
"Documentations for implementing certain product features are very difficult to find"
"There is always room for improvement. There should be more analytics abilities so you can know how much traffic there is. Log Analyzer isn't well integrated with this solution."
"Microsoft Azure API Management could be improved by enhancing the preview feature, specifically the workspaces."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is expensive."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"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."
"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."
"Because of our partner relationship, our pricing is pretty decent. But in general, if I compare pricing, I think the initial offer that we got from Microsoft until the relationship kicked in was more expensive than AWS. There were some unexpected expenses because we had to pause. This was due to our inexperience and because we were doing this significant public cloud migration for the first time. We were using SAP on a public cloud for the first time."
"There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"It's pay as you go. The subscription packages have room for different scales. It's calculated by the number of apps or computers you use. You do not have to use the enterprise subscription. These subscriptions have different pricing, so you can find one to meet your needs for scalability."
"Microsoft is competitively priced."
"We are paying standard fees to use Microsoft Azure API Management."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"The solution is highly expensive. Our customers worry about the costs. The price should be a lot less."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which API Management solutions are best for your needs.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.