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Apiary vs Kong Konnect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Apiary
Ranking in API Management
36th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kong Konnect
Ranking in API Management
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apiary is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kong Konnect1.1%
Apiary0.9%
Other98.0%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

PW
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.
AK
CTO at Keogh Innovation
Centralizes API and AI control planes and has enabled federated self-service for many teams
The whole area of API and AI management is quite complex, with so many different ways of being able to do things. I think a positive of Kong is that it's so configurable and extendable, but that is also a con because there are so many ways of achieving the same thing that I think often people are either confused or struggle to get going as to how to solve a particular problem. In my mind, a more opinionated deployment of Kong itself or even how to solve certain use cases would be something I would like to see, so a more opinionated use of their products and configuration of their products on how to solve the most common use cases. That's probably the main thing about needed improvements for Kong Konnect. It's a pretty fully-fledged platform; there obviously are portions of it that could be improved. But I think overall as a platform, it's really good, and I think it can help the majority of organizations looking to manage their throughput of APIs or AI traffic. The majority of what I've said before probably covers the improvements needed for Kong Konnect. There probably are some API Ops and AI Ops changes that could be improved, which is not necessarily the Kong Konnect product, but some of the toolchains around it. I'm thinking around, especially if it's API Ops, about topics like better GitOps processes and the ways of being able to roll back changes when there are issues. At the moment, a lot of that is either non-existent or is hand-cranked. I would like to see the ability to roll back configurations when there are issues being added to the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Vey high - very easy API design with no setup effort"
"The feature I find most valuable is that it offers authentication and allows us to develop communication points."
"This solution has allowed us to standardize API definitions and bring consistency into our shared components, reducing the effort and cost of using functionality across domains within the organization, with Apiary being crucial to our good API strategy."
"In two years, there was one time the service was down for an hour or so."
"I find the generation of mock services very useful, especially when demonstrating for new consumers."
"Quick and easy way to share a new API design with teams."
"Git integration"
"I do like the overall performance of the solution."
"Kong Konnect has positively impacted my organization by making our development easier and helping us push new routes to our current customers."
"Kong Konnect has impacted my organization positively, particularly in enhancing security and providing a compliance dashboard for applications, making it a very positive impact on my organization."
"Their tech support is excellent; when I raise an incident or a support ticket, it gets answered in four hours."
"Kong Konnect has positively impacted our organization by securing our APIs, which is one of the main concerns for us, and securing our APIs has benefited our organization by improving compliance and reducing incidents."
"My advice for others looking into using Kong Konnect is to please go with it, as it is very good compared to other tools in the market, low cost, has a user-friendly interface, is easy to set up, and customer support is also very good."
"I think it's a really great tool, and I've seen a number of enterprise companies using it."
"Since using Kong Konnect, I have observed less time in onboarding external partners for our internal APIs, less time in exposing our APIs with proper authentication and rate limiting, and more collaboration for discovering API specifications across platforms."
"The documentation is excellent, and it includes a developer portal, which helps create a common distribution channel for APIs within and outside the enterprise."
 

Cons

"Validation messages could be a bit clearer."
"Swagger (OpenAPI Specification) and Blueprint Support"
"I would like an integrated option to download a Swagger version of the definition."
"I don't think this solution is very stable so we try to manage stability from our side."
"The Oracle release cycle is very bad because the patches only update once a year."
"Better Swagger support."
"Kong Konnect can be improved by simplifying pricing to make it more transparent, simplifying the user experience so that non-technical people can also configure API specifications, and by supporting more enterprise plugins and third-party integrations to make it more robust."
"Kong Konnect's RBAC needs to evolve more, as they currently offer only one or two levels of RBAC in terms of organization and teams."
"I wish Kong Konnect could improve by having a built-in notification system whenever any APIs get pinged so that we can receive alerts and send them to the developer."
"I do not rate Kong Konnect a nine out of ten because the configuration can be complex and not beginner-friendly."
"When comparing documentation, Kong's documentation is not on par with Google, Amazon, or other cloud providers."
"Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances."
"I would recommend that Kong add the capability to sort the routes by name, date, or size, as the current setup does not support this."
"Kong Konnect needs improvement in the UI."
 

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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Konnect?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I find that the pricing can be made more transparent and more helpful for enterprise integration.
What needs improvement with Kong Konnect?
I would recommend that Kong add the capability to sort the routes by name, date, or size, as the current setup does not support this. I would suggest that Kong make the routes or services appear in...
What is your primary use case for Kong Konnect?
We use Kong Konnect primarily for centralized API management, API security, Kubernetes ingress management, traffic control, observability, and governance across multiple environments. Additionally,...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, salesforce.com, Bloomberg, GoodData, Viacom, Akamai Technologies, DigitalGlobe
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Find out what your peers are saying about Apiary vs. Kong Konnect and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.