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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs webMethods.io comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
webMethods.io
Ranking in API Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), Cloud Data Integration (7th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.3%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 2.1%, up from 1.9% 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.
Michele Illiano - PeerSpot reviewer
Can function as an ESB along with the core product, with decent integration of message protocols
I have noticed that webMethods ActiveTransfer has had problems when handling large files. For example, when we receive (and perform operations on) files that are larger than about 16 MB, the software starts losing performance. This is why, for most customers who have to deal with big files, I suggest that they use a product other than ActiveTransfer. I would like to note that this problem mainly concerns large files that undergo extra operations, such assigning, unassigning, or file translation. When these operations take place on large files, ActiveTransfer will use up a lot of resources. Within the product itself, I also believe that there is room for improvement in terms of optimization when it comes to general performance. I suspect that the issues underlying poor optimization are because it is all developed in Java. That is, all the objects and functions that are used need to be better organized, especially when it comes to big files but also overall. webMethods ActiveTransfer was born as an ESB to handle messages, and these messages were typically very short, i.e. small in size. A message is data that you have to send to an application, where it must be received in real-time and possibly processed or acknowledged elsewhere in the system as well. So, because it was initially designed for small messages, it struggles with performance when presented with very large files. All this to say, I suggest that they have an engineer reevaluate the architecture of the product in order to consider cases where large files are sent, and not only small ones. As for new features, compared to other products in the market, I think Software AG should be more up to date when it comes to extra protocol support, especially those protocols that other solutions have included in their products by default. Whenever we need to add an unsupported protocol, we have to go through the effort of custom development in order to work with it. Also, all the banks are obligated to migrate to the new standards, and big companies are all handling translations and operating their libraries with the new protocol formats. But webMethods ActiveTransfer doesn't seem to be keeping up with this evolution. Thus, they should aim to be more compliant in future, along the lines of their competitors such as IBM and Primeur.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"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 most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"I like the solution's policies, transformation, mediation, and routing features."
"The comprehensiveness and depth of Integration Servers' connectors to packaged apps and custom apps is unlimited. They have a connector for everything. If they don't, you can build it yourself. Or oftentimes, if there is value for other customers as well, you can talk with webMethods about creating a new adapter for you."
"All of the components are very independent but are tied together to give the business value."
"The tool supports gRPC."
"Currently, we're using this solution for the integration server which helps us to integrate with the mainframe."
"Segregation of deployment for the environments is the most valuable feature of the solution."
"I like the tool's scalability."
"I would say the core Web-based integrations work the best. They are the most efficient and robust implementations one can do with webMethods."
 

Cons

"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 Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"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."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience."
"It would be nice if they had a change management system offering. We built our own deployer application because the one built into webMethods couldn't enforce change management rules. Integration into a change management system, along with the version control system, would be a good offering; it's something that they're lacking."
"The price has room for improvement."
"Scalability and connectors to different cloud applications is lacking."
"The product needs to be improved in a few ways. First, they need to stabilize the components of the whole platform across versions. Also, they should stop replacing old components with brand new ones and, rather, improve by evolution."
"The stability of the various modules of the product suite have been a bit of a concern lately. Though their support team is always easy to reach out to, I would prefer it not come to that."
"We'd like for them to open up to a more cloud-based solution that could offer more flexibility and maybe a better rules engine or more integration with rules engines."
"The on-premises setup can be difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is expensive."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"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."
"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."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"Based on our team discussions and feedback, it is pretty costly because they charge us for each transmission."
"The solution's development license is free for three to six months. We have to pay for other things."
"webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them."
"I would like to see better pricing for the license."
"It is expensive, but we reached a good agreement with the company. It is still a little bit expensive, but we got a better deal than the previous one."
"Some of the licensing is "component-ized," which is confusing to new users/customers."
"Pricing is the number-one downfall. It's too expensive. They could make more money by dropping the price in half and getting more customers. It's the best product there is, but it's too expensive."
"I do think webMethods is coming under increasing pressure when it comes to their price-to-feature value proposition. It's probably the single biggest strategic risk they have. They're very expensive in their industry. They've been raising the price recently, especially when compared with their competitors."
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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
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Energy/Utilities 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...
What do you like most about Built.io Flow?
The tool helps us to streamline data integration. Its BPM is very strong and powerful. The solution helps us manage digital transformation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io is expensive. We have multiple components, and you need to pay for each of them.
What needs improvement with Built.io Flow?
webMethods.io needs to incorporate ChatGPT to enhance user experience. It can offer a customized user experience.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Built.io Flow, webMethods Integration Server, webMethods Trading Networks, webMethods ActiveTransfer, webMethods.io API
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Cisco, Agralogics, Dreamforce, Cables & Sensors, Sacramento Kings
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. webMethods.io and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
839,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.