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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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Business-to-Business Middleware (4th), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (10th), Cloud Data Integration (8th), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.1%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of webMethods.io is 2.2%, 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

"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"ActiveTransfer lets us maintain the file in the staging area before we transfer it. After that, we can remove the file to make sure that the reconciliation process is done. Sometimes we will zip and unzip the files, but if we have a GKB file, we often ignore it."
"It's obvious that the heart of the product lies here. It's comprised of all aspects of ESB (Enterprise Gateway, Adapter, TN, Java) and BPM (task, rules engine)."
"The tool supports gRPC."
"The solution's ease-of-use is its most valuable feature, in which complex issues may be resolved."
"I like the tool's scalability."
"It integrates well with various servers."
"High throughput and excellent scalability."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
 

Cons

"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."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"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 tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"The initial setup of the webMethods Integration Server is not easy but it gets easier once you know it. It is tiresome but not difficult."
"The improvement needed is related to the model's position. As of now, it seems to be more of a conceptual idea rather than a widely implemented solution. For how long"
"We need more dashboards and reporting engines that can provide detailed information for management. In short, we need better analytics."
"The on-premises setup can be difficult."
"webMethods Integration Server needs to add more adapters."
"The certifications and learning resources are not exposed openly enough. For instance, they have a trial version which comes with only a few basic features, and I think that community-wise they need to offer more free or open spaces where developers can feel encouraged to experiment."
"I would like the solution to provide bi-weekly updates."
"t doesn't represent OOP very well, just a method and proprietary interface called IData."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"The licensing is expensive."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"webMethods Trading Networks is a bit costly compared to others solutions."
"I would like to see better pricing for the license."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution's development license is free for three to six months. We have to pay for other things."
"Initialy good pricing and good, if it comes to Enterprise license agreements."
"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."
"The price is a little bit high, especially regarding their support."
"I do see a lack of capabilities inside of the monetization area for them. They have a cloud infrastructure that is pay per use type of a thing. If you already use 1,000 transactions per se, then you can be charged and billed. I see room for improvement there for their side on that particular capability of the monetization."
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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%
Retailer
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.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.