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Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Layer7 API Management 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Apigee improves API management, enhances security, and boosts sales, despite costs, by monetizing digital assets and supporting collaborations.
Sentiment score
7.6
Kong Gateway Enterprise offers scalability, advanced features, and reduces detection time, supporting efficient API delivery with economic benefits.
Sentiment score
6.7
Layer7 API Management offers business growth and protection, with varying ROI timelines; quick benefits are observed by many users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Apigee's customer support is mixed, valued for responsiveness but criticized for delays and disparities in service attention.
Sentiment score
6.9
Kong Gateway Enterprise support is helpful and responsive, but users note delays and desire quicker, more capable assistance.
Sentiment score
7.3
Layer7 API Management is praised for support and resources, though some users note post-acquisition service challenges.
They are responsive and provide assistance even during production issues.
The customer service and support are cooperative and effective in providing insights and solutions during challenges.
In the past two years, I have been experiencing less assistance.
The technical support from Kong Gateway Enterprise would be rated about eight, as we missed local technical support.
Technical support is excellent, and I would rate them as ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Apigee scales efficiently and flexibly, handling high traffic well, though cost challenges may arise with increased use.
Sentiment score
7.2
Kong Gateway Enterprise is praised for scalability across applications, but smaller entities face challenges due to resource constraints.
Sentiment score
7.3
Layer7 API Management efficiently scales to handle significant traffic, supporting millions of daily requests with proper configuration.
Adding extra Cassandra databases is complex.
The scalability of this solution would be rated about eight or nine.
All nodes communicate with one primary database, affecting connections and causing crashes under high load.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Apigee is stable and reliable, with rare downtime and strong performance supported by Google Cloud, ideal for complex enterprise needs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Kong Gateway Enterprise is stable with few issues, excellent architecture, and recommended strong configuration for optimal performance and versatility.
Sentiment score
7.6
Layer7 API Management is stable and reliable, with minor scalability issues, often resolved through updates and support.
Apigee is stable, and we have had the system running on Apigee servers for more than four years without any stability issues.
Without rebooting for ninety to one hundred eighty days, cache builds up in Linux boxes, causing memory utilization issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Users desire better role-based access, Git integration, automation, pricing, analytics, documentation, and technical support in Apigee.
Kong Gateway Enterprise needs better pricing, integrations, API management, documentation, customization, support, and AI features for improved user experience.
Layer7 API Management needs improvements in UI, documentation, integration, functionality, training, policy tools, monitoring, reporting, and migration.
Apigee only allows validation of transactions up to a four-hour period, which requires manual hovering over the date and time.
Analytics is one of the areas needing enhancement, specifically more visibility and control over traffic to improve capacity management and high availability.
Apigee should also incorporate these capabilities, especially in the on-premises version.
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.
Broadcom's push for upgrades from version nine to ten, ten to 10.3, and onwards to twelve needs improvement in migration processes, especially with service dependencies.
 

Setup Cost

Apigee is costly and complex, ideal for medium to large enterprises with comprehensive features justifying its subscription-based pricing.
Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing is competitive, especially compared to Apigee, with value dependent on organizational needs and region.
Layer7 API Management offers competitive pricing with Essential and Enterprise tiers, though perceived costly for smaller enterprises.
Apigee's product cost is quite high compared to other products.
Apigee is high-priced, suitable for large enterprises where the benefit aligns with the cost.
Apigee is perceived as slightly costly compared to other tools in the market.
Seeing other products makes the tool's pricing seem high.
 

Valuable Features

Apigee offers robust API management with analytics, security, customization, scalability, and user-friendly features, enhancing enterprise decision-making.
Kong Gateway Enterprise provides scalable, secure API management with integration support, high performance, and adaptability via open-source community backing.
Layer7 API Management excels with robust security, scalability, and features like content routing and drag-and-drop functionality.
It provides all the necessary capabilities for current technologies, enabling communication and translation between protocols, along with supporting stringent security features.
Apigee provides catalog management, onboarding of new customers, an API portal, and security features.
We rely on Elasticsearch to monitor traffic, which provides high visibility and control and surpasses Apigee in certain features.
The most valuable features of Kong Gateway Enterprise are its seamless integration with Kubernetes and cloud, many plugins that can be incorporated in a solution, and its incorporation with low-code function systems.
The flexibility to develop APIs for various platforms, from front-end applications to ATM machines, is valuable.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apigee is 12.2%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.1%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Layer7 API Management is 2.8%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

ShawkyFoda  - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
ASHOK YADAV - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
NikhilChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Valued for its drag-and-drop functionalities, the available policy options, and the excellent security features
I work as a PG developer, primarily dealing with Layer7 API Management and MuleSoft API management. My focus is mainly on VM management platforms such as Layer7 and Apigee Layer7 API Management is most valued for its drag-and-drop functionalities, the available policy options, and the excellent…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?
More plugins for additional integrations would be helpful and openness for traditional development languages, such as...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Layer7 API Management?
Pricing is more than average. While I am used to Layer7 API Management ( /products/layer7-api-management-reviews ), s...
What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?
Broadcom's push for upgrades from version nine to ten, ten to 10.3, and onwards to twelve needs improvement in migrat...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in API Management. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.