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Frends 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

Frends
Ranking in API Management
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
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 (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Frends is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kong Konnect1.0%
Frends0.7%
Other98.3%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Lauri Vanhanen - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Manager at ELO
Integration platform has simplified logistics workflows and has streamlined complex order handling
The best aspect is that it is very easy to use. The UI is very intuitive, and you can learn it very quickly because the basic principles are straightforward and easy to search. Frends has a great UI, but the UI is missing role-based permissions. You can filter your integrations by roles and add several users to roles, but in the UI, the functionality for this kind of management feature is not optimal. User management or user role management could be improved.
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

"The user-friendly interface for constructing integration solutions is also a notable benefit."
"The product has valuable features for version control."
"The best aspect is that it is very easy to use."
"One of the benefits is the speed of creating something new. Second, it's replacing the old integration quite fast. Then it is like the visibility of the integration and the possibility to see what is happening in the integration."
"Technical support from Proofpoint was absolutely excellent."
"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."
"Their tech support is excellent; when I raise an incident or a support ticket, it gets answered in four hours."
"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."
"The documentation is excellent, and it includes a developer portal, which helps create a common distribution channel for APIs within and outside the enterprise."
"I think it's a really great tool, and I've seen a number of enterprise companies using it."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Another enhancement includes the monitoring part. It would be nice to have some sort of maybe mobile app on which we can see how integrations are running if there are some problems, and getting those alerts on the mobile would be really nice."
"It is a new application and lacks some essential features compared to competitors."
"One of the primary areas for improvement is a more mobile-friendly interface for the control center."
"Logging should be better."
"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 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."
"Kong Konnect needs improvement in the UI."
"I do not rate Kong Konnect a nine out of ten because the configuration can be complex and not beginner-friendly."
"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."
"When comparing documentation, Kong's documentation is not on par with Google, Amazon, or other cloud providers."
"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."
"Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Recent changes in their pricing have removed this benefit, moving towards process-specific pricing."
"The pricing is quite fair."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
36%
Educational Organization
11%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software 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

What needs improvement with Frends?
Logging should be better. Third-party software logging should be integrated into the monitors of the front-end integrations, but it does not monitor the third-party connectors through that. Those l...
What is your primary use case for Frends?
We had many different applications for Frends. For file transferring of different types, we modified the files and then used it for logistical processes including warehousing, inventory checkups, a...
What advice do you have for others considering Frends?
If you need an integration platform, I would recommend Frends. I give this product a rating of 8 out of 10.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Konnect?
The processing of the license for Kong Konnect is normally handled by procurement, so in large enterprises, that's not something I've had to deal with, so I can't really comment on that at all. Set...
What needs improvement with Kong Konnect?
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...
What is your primary use case for Kong Konnect?
My main use case for Kong Konnect, at least with the clients that I work with, is to create a centralized single pane of glass for all of their control planes, whether it be for their API gateways ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Frends vs. Kong Konnect and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.