Apiary vs Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

Oracle and Google are both solutions in the API Management category. Oracle is ranked #37, while Google is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. Oracle holds a 0.4% mindshare in APIM, compared to Google’s 12.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Google users who would recommend it.

Apiary

Read 4 Apiary reviews

409 Views
405 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Apigee

Read 88 Apigee reviews

16,767 Views
16,599 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 25 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

7,416 Views
7,416 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Apiary

Apigee

Kong Gateway Enterprise

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apiary, Apigee, and Kong Gateway Enterprise based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in API Management.

To learn more, read our detailed API Management Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

API Management

June 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apiary is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apigee is 12.8%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.2%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management

Featured Reviews

Phil Wilkins

Enterprise Integration Architect at Capgemini

The ability to configure rules to check for consistency has helped

Apiary provides a free tier of the platform which allows a small group of developers to collaborate easily on the design of open source APIs. In addition to this, it provides mock endpoints allowing people to experiment with the API without depending or having to stand up a real backend. With our clients, using Apiary allows us to very quickly pull together an API definition (particularly when using API Blueprint). The whole API design process for the simpler use cases can be done in a relatively short workshop which makes it a lot easier to agree, publish, version-manage an API definition with suitable documentation. This can then be evolved and enhanced (particularly in the documentation aspects). With the ability to support Swagger (Open API v2 and introducing/ed support for v3) and API Blueprint makes it a very versatile tool.

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ShawkyFoda

Senior Consultant at Goverment

Provides high visibility and control with good traffic monitoring

Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability. The replication process between Master and Slave for disaster recovery takes too long. Dependencies on analytics impact the performance of the user interface, which should be separate. The complex setup process on-premises, especially with multi-node installations, could also be improved. Additional control in product declarations, based on operations like POST and GET, is needed.

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ASHOK YADAV

Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Offers OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions but lacks software upgrades

Upgrading Kong Gateway Enterprise should be more sophisticated and innovative. The main issue is with the update process. Our DevOps and admin teams need to update multiple files, which is cumbersome. For instance, in cases where Palantir countries are involved, they have to update many files, which is not ideal. However, for other tasks like configuring the message routing and services and handling all the configurations, the process is acceptable. The software version upgrade process should be improved. Additionally, the DevOps portal should be integrated more natively. There are a few other areas for improvement, such as implementing automatic load balancing. The status of the office team, whether it is up or down, should be checked at the API gateway level to facilitate load balancing.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Git integration"

"In two years, there was one time the service was down for an hour or so."

"I do like the overall performance of the solution."

"Quick and easy way to share a new API design with teams."

"I find the generation of mock services very useful, especially when demonstrating for new consumers."

"Apigee is very easy to use, and you can code in any language."

"It nice and easy for the clients and those using the product to access the product's help resources."

"A special feature is configuring target servers, proxy config, and Cert related security, which regularizes incoming traffic from cloud users or external applications to internal applications in a secured manner."

"We use it to build API proxies for securing targeted back-ends with an emphasis on Continuous Integration/Continuous Development (CI/CD)."

"Apigee is a strong-featured solution. It leads in Gartner Quadrant ratings and it is a full-slated API solution that has the features that an API gateway requires."

"It has a very efficient logging system which is easy to maintain."

"The most valuable feature of the current version of Apigee, such as Apigee Edge, is that the maintenance and scalability of the service are not our responsibility. As a SaaS platform, Google takes care of it, ensuring the system is stable. Another valuable feature is the ability to customize the platform extensively. We can add JavaScript functionality to cater to any use case that is not available out of the box."

"Apigee is a pioneer in the industry and has good features and functionalities. It is a good tool for API management and it has more advancements than all other tools in the market in certain areas."

More Apigee pros

"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."

"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."

"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."

"In terms of stability, the tool's team has made some good efforts, and my company is very happy with the product's approach."

"There are a few features that I like about Kong when it comes to authentication and authorization. Specifically, being able to use Kong for role-based access control (RBAC), and then further being able to integrate the RBAC mechanism with our enterprise directory, was very useful."

"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."

"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."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

Cons

"I would like an integrated option to download a Swagger version of the definition."

"Swagger (OpenAPI Specification) and Blueprint Support"

"The Oracle release cycle is very bad because the patches only update once a year."

"The solution’s scalability could be improved."

"One feature they have to invest time into is the developer portal they use."

"Apigee is more of an entry level solution that does basic things pretty well, but if you want to go more customizable, you want to really look for another solution."

"The ability to work across different management solutions in a plug and play fashion would make it easier for faster uptake."

"I would like to see the monitoring, dashboards, and reports improve."

"An area for improvement would be to provide more information while troubleshooting."

"There is potential for improvement in specific domain integrations, such as standard integration capabilities needed for banking or retail sectors."

"Access restrictions can be improved."

More Apigee cons

"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."

"More plugins for additional integrations would be helpful and openness for traditional development languages, such as .NET, because many enterprises are looking for .NET solutions or incorporating with .NET solutions."

"They could focus more on pricing."

"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."

"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."

"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."

"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."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a free subscription option to start and try the service."

"It is easy to get started with personal (free) accounts, but a subscription is required for additional features."

"The prices are comparable."

"Its price is reasonable for the features they provide and the maturity of the platform."

"It was fairly expensive. I don't know what the standard pricing is. I want to say that it's something like $80,000 for 800 million requests (approximately) a year."

"The solution is a bit expensive. It's not for organizations in the early stages of their lifecycle but is more suited for mid- to enterprise-level platforms. Pricing varies by deployment model, with SaaS being the cheapest, costing around $100,000 per year for a subscription. For hybrid and on-prem deployments, the price increases. The on-prem model includes a license and additional installation and configuration professional service costs, which can be at least $40,000 to $60,000 for the initial setup. While it's not cheap, it offers long-term value and can be worthwhile."

"My clients pay for a license."

"It is a bit on the expensive side. Its licensing cost is a bit high, and that's where we've seen people going back on their decisions."

"Apigee has several different licenses you can obtain depending on your needs."

"The current version of Apigee is not too expensive, but we are currently in talks with Google to understand their roadmap for Apigee X. However, we anticipate that with the introduction of Apigee X, the pricing will likely increase."

More Apigee pricing and cost advice

"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."

"The licensing is expensive."

"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."

"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."

"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."

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."

"The licensing fees are paid yearly."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?

Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a clou...

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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...

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What do you like most about Apigee?

We can customize the dashboard.

See all answers

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 sof...

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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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?

More plugins for additional integrations would be helpful and openness for traditional development languages, such as...

See all answers

Comparisons

Postman vs Apiary

Compared 40% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Apiary

Compared 33% of the time

Oracle API Platform Cloud Service vs Apiary

Compared 28% of the time

More Apiary Competitors

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Apigee

Compared 24% of the time

IBM API Connect vs Apigee

Compared 10% of the time

WSO2 API Manager vs Apigee

Compared 8% of the time

MuleSoft API Manager vs Apigee

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Apigee

Compared 6% of the time

More Apigee Competitors

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 10% of the time

Kong Konnect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 10% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon API Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

API Management

June 2025

Download Apiary product report

Buyer's Guide

Apigee

July 2025

Download Apigee product report

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

July 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Overview

Apiary's pioneering APIFlow solution provides the framework and tools for developing application programming interfaces (APIs) that share enterprise services and data and help create modern, cloud-based applications and experiences. APIFlow spans the API creation lifecycle, including design, governance, testing, and documentation, while supporting API Blueprint and OpenAPI industry standardsץ

Oracle

Apigee is a platform for developing and managing APIs. Apigee offers an interface for your core services by wrapping them with a proxy layer which is then accessed by other developers. With Apigee, you can design and build APIs and then securely share their services and data without exposing any code.

Because app developers make HTTP requests to an API proxy rather than directly to your services, your services are separated from the developers. All the developer needs to know is the URL of the API proxy endpoint, necessary query parameters, authorization credentials (if they exist), and the response data format.

The API proxy isolates the app developer from your backend service. Therefore, you are free to change the service implementation if the public API remains consistent. By maintaining a consistent frontend API, existing client apps will continue to work regardless of changes on the backend.

Key capabilities of the Apigee API management platform include:

Security: Protect APIs, messages, and backends with configurable policies such as OAuth, API key verification, XML/JSON threat protection, and access control.
API gateway: Secure and mediate the traffic between clients and backends, and between a company’s APIs and the developers who use the APIs.
Developer portal: Attract and engage application developers, enabling them to discover, explore, purchase, and test APIs and register to access and use the APIs.
API console: The console helps developers learn and work with APIs.
API lifecycle management: Manage the process of designing, developing, publishing, deploying, and versioning APIs.
Automated documentation: Automate the development of API documentation and software development kits.
Machine learning: Utilize machine learning and analytics to generate actionable insights and reports.

API monitoring: Apigee offers monitoring tools for API troubleshooting, security, and optimization.

Reviews from Real Users:

Apigee stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its rich developer portal, its advanced analytics, and its central monitoring system.

Carlos R., a software architect at Caja Los Andes writes, “The central monitoring feature is the most valuable. It also provides security for the APIs and high availability for our use cases. Apigee is the best product in the industry in comparison to other API management solutions. It helps in fast development, which is a top point. It also supports a lot of industry standards and has excellent documentation.”

An associate vice president at a tech services company notes, “The analytics function and the developer portal are the two valuable features of Apigee. The analytics part is very good, and the developer portal is quite rich in features. The authentication mechanisms are quite easily built into Apigee, which is something that most of the other products have also now started supporting.”

Google

Kong delivers a next generation API platform built for modern architectures. With a lightnight-fast, lightweight, and flexible core, Kong delivers sub-millisecond latency across all your services. Kong's is deployment-, vendor-, and pattern-agnostic, allowing you to run your services how you want, where you want, and with who you want - from baremetal to cloud, monolith to microservices, service mesh, and beyond.

Kong

Sample Customers

Microsoft, salesforce.com, Bloomberg, GoodData, Viacom, Akamai Technologies, DigitalGlobe

Adobe, advance.net, Amadeus, AT&T, Bechtel, Belly, Burberry, Chegg, Citrix, Dell, eBay, Equifax, GameStop, First Data, Globe, HCSC, Intralinks, Kao, Meredith, Mitchell, Orange, Pearson

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in API Management. Updated: June 2025.

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