We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and Kong Gateway Enterprise based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two API Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"It is quite stable. We've not had any problem. It has made for a good buy because we are finding that other companies that have similar set ups go down maybe once a month."
"It acts as a central gateway for both external APIs and underlying systems. It's basically a central middleware for hosting APIs to the internet and consuming APIs from internal systems. It provides central governance for any APIs going outside the network, ensuring security and a common contract for API definitions."
"IBM API Connect is a reliable and scalable solution."
"One of the most valuable features is the easy-to-use web interface."
"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."
"Since it runs on top of Datapower, all Datapower based custom policies can be utilized and exported to API connect but its not straightforward/simple process."
"It allows enterprises to expose some of their tech to outside stakeholders."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"The solution provides good performance."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"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."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"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 significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"The solution would be better if it had cloud functionalities."
"Due to bugs in integration, we have to look for workaround on fixing and using DataPower as gateway."
"The developmental process is not quite user-friendly."
"The implementation of IBM API Connect is complex, as it's an enterprise solution with many components that require more than one person. It's not a single product that you work on, and this is an area for improvement, but normally, it's good. Having a more structured model for IBM API Connect support is also room for improvement that would help customers better."
"Debugging could be improved."
"It is expensive within this class of products."
"The solution is overly complex."
"We would have more capability to interact with the catalog and inventories, so a more DevOps-friendly solution is needed."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"There should be an easier way to integrate with other solutions, even though it's the same API solution layer. Comparability will be a good improvement."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"Kong Enterprise needs to improve its pricing, which starts at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Pricing should be based on API usage rather than monthly. It should improve its documentation as well."
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while Kong Gateway Enterprise is ranked 6th in API Management with 18 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while Kong Gateway Enterprise is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of IBM API Connect writes "Good speed and performance, but it's based on a bit dated architecture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Kong Gateway Enterprise writes "Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script". IBM API Connect is most compared with IBM DataPower Gateway, Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and 3scale API Management, whereas Kong Gateway Enterprise is most compared with Microsoft Azure API Management, WSO2 API Manager, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and IBM DataPower Gateway. See our IBM API Connect vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise report.
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We monitor all API Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
