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Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise 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

Amazon API Gateway
Ranking in API Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Amazon API Gateway is 13.0%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.7%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kundu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective serverless routing with room for extended timeout settings
We are using API Gateway to route the traffic to our Lambdas. Every API pass is linked to some of the Lambdas. When traffic hits CloudFront, it redirects it to API Gateway, which then redirects it to the respective Lambda server. We have different kinds of services invoked through these Lambdas…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"API Gateway is out of the box and works well with Amazon products."
"A most valuable feature of Amazon API Gateway is how quickly we can connect to backend services and have APIs accessible from anywhere."
"The product is stable."
"The product is really good when it comes to API lifecycle management, and it is not just something that includes the balancing part or the security aspect but also the routing and the fallback mechanism."
"API Gateway is easy to set up, allows for custom domain assignment and rate limiting based on customer tiers, and works well for defining different states for different customers based on their purchase plans."
"Amazon stack is easy to use in combination with other Amazon services, so it was a logical continuity."
"API Gateway offers a multitude of configuration parameters that enable versatile request filtering and protection against potential attacks."
"Amazon API Gateway facilitates our serverless architecture, particularly with Lambda, by allowing us to perform various tasks. For instance, Lambda functions authorize API calls, execute multiple workloads, and integrate with other services like Azure and Kubernetes. Additionally, we leverage Lambda functions behind the Amazon API Gateway to query databases, process data, and interact with different systems."
"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."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"The solution provides good performance."
"In terms of stability, the tool's team has made some good efforts, and my company is very happy with the product's approach."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
 

Cons

"Amazon API Gateway will wait for only 30 seconds to get a response from other services, such as the Lambda function."
"There are features lacking in API Gateway, such as the timeout settings, which currently are set at 29 seconds."
"The payment is a little bit on the costlier side when I look at the amount we have to pay."
"The price could be lower."
"The course management needs improvement. It's always an issue to set up the course management, especially when you use data form."
"Its support for SAM integration could be made more accessible."
"Monitoring could be improved."
"API Gateway lacks some governance features that MuleSoft offers, and there are additional features that could make it even better."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"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 tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the platform's pricing a five out of ten."
"We use all open-source technology."
"Amazon API Gateway has various pricing plans, but I cannot give the exact cost, though I can say that it's expensive. On a scale of one to five, I'd rate the pricing for Amazon API Gateway as two, as the solution is one of the most expensive products in the market for API management."
"There are no licensing fees."
"It's cost-effective, even as our workload and the number of APIs we manage have increased."
"I am satisfied with the price."
"The solution's pricing is cheap and based on the number of requests coming to Amazon API Gateway."
"The pricing model for API Gateway is advantageous due to its serverless nature, as it depends on traffic volume."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Apigee or Amazon API Gateway?
Amazon API Gateway is a platform that supports the creation and publication of API for web applications. The platform can support thousands of simultaneous API calls, and it provides monitoring, ma...
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 ...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Autodesk, Fox Digital Consumer Group, iFlix, UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Miovision, Olympusat, PhotoVogue, Royale International Group, Veracode
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon API Gateway vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.