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Apollo GraphOS vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

Apollo GraphQL and Kong are both solutions in the API Management category. Apollo GraphQL is ranked #31 with an average rating of 7.0, while Kong is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.9. Apollo GraphQL holds a 0.4% mindshare in APIM, compared to Kong’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Apollo GraphQL users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Kong users who would recommend it.

Apollo GraphOS

Read 2 Apollo GraphOS reviews

264 Views
264 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Read 25 Kong Gateway Enterprise reviews

6,455 Views
6,455 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Apollo GraphOS

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apollo GraphOS 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: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

API Management

October 2025

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Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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

Apollo GraphOS

Ranking in API Management

31st

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Ranking in API Management

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Apollo GraphOS is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.1%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Kong Gateway Enterprise	7.1%
Apollo GraphOS	0.4%
Other	92.5%

API Management

Featured Reviews

Sagor Rana

Front End Engineer at Upwork

Efficiently filters API data though experiences slower performance with larger projects

I would like to see better performance in larger projects. When dealing with large amounts of data, it can become slow, causing users to potentially abandon the application. Improving performance and ensuring the app runs smoothly would enhance user experience. Stability issues, where it sometimes breaks down, need to be addressed as well.

Read full review

Sudhanshu Dev

Senior Principal DevOps Engineer at barq

Custom plugin capability with enhanced high traffic handling and lightweight performance

We use Kong for our API gateway, handling all public traffic. It is an open-source tool, and even though we are a startup, it provides us with stability without incurring high costs initially Kong has helped us by performing smoothly even when we receive millions of requests, which prevents any…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Apollo GraphOS has significantly enhanced both the developer experience and product delivery timelines by offering a centralized approach to managing GraphQL schemas and services, helping reduce overhead and improve collaboration between frontend and backend teams."

"The most valuable features of Apollo GraphOS OS for me are its security and authentication processes."

"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."

"Kong's most valuable features are its lightweight performance when handling millions of requests and the ability to write custom plugins to enhance security, such as end-to-end encryption, even in the open-source version."

"Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend Kong Gateway Enterprise to other people."

"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of 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 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."

"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."

"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."

"The route limiting feature is very valuable."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

Cons

"Apollo GraphOS OS is using a detailed project, and it can be time-consuming because it has a lot of data to manage. It sometimes takes longer than three seconds, which can affect loading times and lead to user dissatisfaction. I would like to see improved performance."

"Apollo GraphOS OS is using a detailed project, and it can be time-consuming because it has a lot of data to manage."

"There’s room for improvement in schema collaboration tools, especially in large teams where multiple developers are working on overlapping parts of the API."

"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."

"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."

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

"The developer portal needs to be improved."

"They could focus more on pricing."

"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."

"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."

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

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."

"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."

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

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

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

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

"The licensing is expensive."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Large Enterprise	19

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apollo GraphOS?

I am not sensitive to nor very knowledgeable about the pricing and setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apollo GraphOS?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Apollo GraphOS?

I primarily use Apollo GraphQL to work with APIs in conjunction with Node.js. When I make API calls, I receive a lot of information, but I only need specific details like names, emails, and photos....

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 software, it is easy to install and upgrade. While there are different things that ...

See all answers

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...

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 .NET, because many enterprises are looking for .NET solutions or incorporating ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Apollo GraphOS

Compared 36% of the time

Postman Enterprise vs Apollo GraphOS

Compared 26% of the time

Apigee vs Apollo GraphOS

Compared 23% of the time

WunderGraph vs Apollo GraphOS

Compared 15% of the time

More Apollo GraphOS Competitors

WSO2 API Manager vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 12% of the time

Apache APISIX vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Apigee vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Kong Konnect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

More Kong Gateway Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

API Management

October 2025

Download Apollo GraphOS product report

Buyer's Guide

Kong Gateway Enterprise

September 2025

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Overview

Apollo GraphOS is a comprehensive platform designed for managing and enhancing GraphQL development. It streamlines the process of creating, testing, and maintaining GraphQL APIs effectively, offering a robust environment for developers.

Apollo GraphOS offers developers a powerful toolkit for streamlining GraphQL API lifecycle management. Its robust structure supports efficient schema design, observability, and collaboration, making it a valuable asset for development teams. These features allow for enhanced control and oversight, ensuring a seamless workflow. However, there is still room for improvement in integration capabilities with other tools and platforms, which users have noted in reviews.

What are Apollo GraphOS's key features?

Schema Federation: Allows seamless integration of multiple services under a unified graph.
GraphQL Insights: Provides in-depth analytics to optimize API performance and usage.
Version Control: Ensures precise and organized tracking of schema changes over time.
Collaboration Tools: Facilitates teamwork through shared access and communication features.
Security Management: Offers advanced protection mechanisms for your API.

What benefits should users expect?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines development processes, saving time and resources.
Enhanced Collaboration: Promotes teamwork and efficient communication with shared resources.
Scalability: Supports growth with robust infrastructure adaptable to increasing demands.
Data-Driven Decisions: Enables informed choices through comprehensive analytics tools.

In industries like e-commerce and fintech, Apollo GraphOS enables teams to rapidly implement scalable GraphQL solutions, facilitating real-time data interactions and improving customer experiences. Healthcare sectors utilize it for secure data management, while media industries benefit from dynamic content delivery capabilities.

Apollo GraphQL

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

Information Not Available

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: October 2025.

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