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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs MuleSoft API Manager 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
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
56
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 MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 26, 2021
 

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.
Dipanjan_Nandi - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable testing stubs and policy enforcement with room for better security and cost management
From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available. Features like monetization and advanced security, which are present in Apigee, are missing. I also want the API Manager to be used as a separate product apart from MuleSoft's other integration solutions. Additionally, the licensing cost is high, and many clients are looking to switch due to this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the low code environment, the drag-and-drop functionality, and the ability to drop the connectors on the fly, which are extremely helpful."
"I believe the API connectivity within the cloud marketplace is most valuable."
"It can create high-cost solutions, allowing for a great deal of customization to make it well-suited for specific needs."
"The tool has a private area. It also has a cloud deployment option."
"MuleSoft has given the API solution a 3-tiered architecture. This means that there are multiple channels available in one application. The usability is very high."
"Anypoint API Manager's most valuable feature is its connectors."
"One of the more valuable features is the stability of the platform."
"The developer portal is easy to integrate. It is easy to use, easy to integrate, and I like the developer portal."
 

Cons

"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 software version upgrade process should be improved."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"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 solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"Better documentation to help explain each of the features would be really helpful."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"Their studio performance is very slow, it requires a lot of memory, and should be improved."
"It is not a very scalable solution."
"An area for improvement in MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is the process of applying policies because it's manual. It would be great if MuleSoft could make the process easier, particularly by automating it."
"Not many stand-out features."
"The initial setup, if you go back three or three and a half years, definitely, for us, was complex."
"The solution should facilitate the creation of custom connectors for use cases where a user would require extra connectors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"The licensing is expensive."
"The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable."
"The pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"I'm unsure about licensing costs because I'm not the person who handles this. But, ballpark, it's probably somewhere around $300,000-$400,000 or something like that."
"The product's main drawback is its cost. It's expensive for our company, and their recent change in pricing strategy last year complicated things further. That's the only thing we're not happy with."
"The price of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is very high."
"Our customers have a lot of concerns about the increased pricing. The customer feels MuleSoft is very costly, and they are also exploring other integration tools for a lesser price. Maybe we should retain the existing customers by offering some discounts. At least the existing customers can be retained this way. This is regarding the licensing part only because customers based out of North America and Europe have shown many concerns recently. They are a bit concerned about pricing."
"Pricing can be improved."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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 Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The cost for using MuleSoft is approximately $500,000 USD per year. It includes various subscriptions like the signature success plan and platinum subscriptions, making it a costly infrastructure.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Anypoint API Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.