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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs MuleSoft API Manager 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
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
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 most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"Kong's most valuable features are its lightweight performance when handling millions of requests and the ability to write custom plugins to enhance security, such as end-to-end encryption, even in the open-source version."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"The most important features are the API management and API development."
"MuleSoft API Manager allows us to implement custom policies or use out-of-the-box policies, such as authentication policies, which save time."
"The developer portal is easy to integrate. It is easy to use, easy to integrate, and I like the developer portal."
"We have all the policies available via drag and drop. It made it very easy."
"We can use both on-premises and cloud setups."
"The integration process was straightforward."
"The MuleSoft Exchange and the Experience Hub stand out as the most valuable features."
"The tool has a private area. It also has a cloud deployment option."
 

Cons

"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"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 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."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"The initial setup is very complex."
"With respect to the live help, I have language issues because I can't understand some of the things that I hear."
"There are some loopholes in the security policies that could be improved."
"The log management for this solution needs improvement."
"From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available."
"Since most components are situated in the cloud, there's one particular hosted in the cloud. This presents a considerable challenge. While all other components are implemented on-premises, this specific one isn't permitted to be hosted in the cloud as per customer requirements. Shifting this component to an on-premises environment requires a significant effort."
"Rather than focusing on numbers, they should focus more on the customer support service."
"The solution is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"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."
"The licensing is expensive."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as six and a half to seven."
"Anypoint is the most expensive solution on the market, as far as I know, though it's also the most capable."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"When it comes to determining price, the pre-sales team interacts with the customer's primary integration team and the price is negotiated based on the specific usage of the system."
"It is extremely high, and I would rate it one out of ten."
"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 pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"It is really expensive from a Zimbabwean perspective."
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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
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?
Convincing management about the costs due to the billing based on the number of cores is a challenge. MuleSoft is typically more expensive compared to using Java or Spring Boot ( /products/spring-b...
 

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: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.