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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Tyk 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
Tyk
Ranking in API Management
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
6
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 Tyk is 2.0%, up from 1.6% 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.
MarkDoherty - PeerSpot reviewer
Fastest to get up and running and fewer idiosyncrasies than competitors
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them. But as a product, it's very difficult to find any major faults.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."
"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."
"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."
"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."
"It is a good product for API management."
"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."
 

Cons

"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"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."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"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."
"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."
"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."
"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."
"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."
"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."
"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is expensive."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"We are using the open-source version of this product, so there are no licensing costs for its use."
"There are different versions and plans available depending on the requirements, so there is flexibility in terms of the pricing."
"The cost curve is far smoother, both in terms of volume and the number of calls it's running on, compared to most competitors. So it's a tad more expensive at the very low end, but the curve is nothing like Apigee or some of the others."
"It had a free version, which suited many of our needs, but not all, but we were happy to go ahead with the licensed version as well, which is the paid version."
"The price is low compared to other products of a similar type."
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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
27%
Computer Software Company
16%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
What do you like most about Tyk?
The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tyk?
The pricing is actually quite competitive. In Azure environments, it gets beaten by Microsoft API Gateway, but on the other hand, it offers some features that Microsoft lacks. So it really comes do...
What needs improvement with Tyk?
In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Trip Advisor, Juniper Networks, AT&T
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Tyk and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.