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IBM API Connect 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

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (8th)
Kong Konnect
Ranking in API Management
25th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM API Connect is 6.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Konnect is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features
While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.
SA
Significant email security benefits combined with efficient spam filtering, yet cost hinders long-term use
The integration with our on-prem Exchange was very straightforward; the only thing we did was redirect all email traffic over Proofpoint, so Proofpoint did everything independently, and we were very happy. I am still receiving emails from Proofpoint's site. Not using it at the moment, but in the short term we will be tackling that portion of the product as well. We cannot provide feedback regarding Dynamics because we are not experienced enough at the moment; we have initiatives going on but did not get enough feedback from end users. Based on my overall experience with Proofpoint, considering the cost perspective, I would rate it a 7 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM API Connect is a good product, and their technical support is excellent."
"Overall, I rate it nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of IBM API Connect are its performance and user-friendliness."
"It is a complete all-in-one solution."
"The statistics component is easy to use."
"The capabilities are very good."
"This solution is ready to scale and already supports our agile CICD."
"It offers enhanced security features to protect APIs, enforce access control, and secure sensitive data."
"Technical support from Proofpoint was absolutely excellent."
"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

"The monetization of the API could be improved. The pricing for the consumer is also very important to improve this solution."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security."
"While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome."
"We have encountered challenges with IBM API Connect, particularly during significant upgrades. These upgrades demand substantial labour and financial resources, including consulting services from IBM. I'd like to see increased flexibility, more frequent updates with new features, an efficient upgrade process, and additional AI capabilities for future releases."
"The only disadvantage I can see is that it requires heavy hardware support."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"It's based on a little bit dated architecture. A lot of evolution has happened after that. It's an evolving field. Kong is a Kubernetes-based platform. Kong runs on Kubernetes, but all the other ones are in microservices. So, there's a lot of improvement that can be done."
"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."
"Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."
"API Connect was highly expensive for us, but the decision to switch was made before I joined the company. It seems like the company bought it, but they didn't know how to use it. After two years, they decided to reevaluate and conduct some cost estimates."
"It's an expensive product."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, there are a lot of customization capabilities."
"The price for IBM API Connect is reasonable. It's $20,000 to $30,000 yearly for a subscription, and the pricing could vary around $40,000 per year, per subscription. Its price is reasonable for customers who have around sixty million API calls yearly for unlimited environments."
"IBM API Connect could be cheaper."
"I haven't seen anyone go from on-premise to the cloud. In fact, I am seeing people go from the cloud to on-premise because the costs can quickly grow on the cloud."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
Pricing depends on how many instances run across environments. I don't deal with licensing, but compared to other IBM products, the licensing is not significantly higher.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
When comparing API Gateway with DataPower Gateway, several features in DataPower Gateway are absent in the APIC layer. Examples include the lack of connectivity to MQ ( /categories/message-queue-mq...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Konnect?
The pricing deserves a high rating for consideration. Cost was the reason we stopped using it. Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances.
What needs improvement with Kong Konnect?
Pricing might be a topic to consider regarding improvements. I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country itself.
What is your primary use case for Kong Konnect?
The clients mainly were using Proofpoint for email security, which is the primary use case. We have used Proofpoint for email security.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Kong Konnect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.