Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM DataPower Gateway vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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 DataPower Gateway
Ranking in API Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), Application Infrastructure (9th), SOA Application Gateways (1st)
Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.0%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.2%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."
"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."
"It's high-speed and it can be remotely administered via an API."
"The solution is robust."
"My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Compared to other gateways, I also like that IBM DataPower Gateway is function-rich. For example, for one of the projects, there was a need for specific transformation and security features available in IBM DataPower Gateway out of the box, so my team just needed to configure the appliance. There was no need for separate development, and I found it quite neat. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"If you have an API application in your organization that you want to make safe and secure, in addition to your existing WAF or load balancer, this product comes with all those capabilities:"
"Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend Kong Gateway Enterprise to other people."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"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."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"The features I like include ease of operation and implementation in a cloud environment, the dashboarding features for API statistics, and the user-friendly developer portal."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"The user interface or the application development perspective and customization of the tool could be a little better."
"An area for improvement in IBM DataPower Gateway is its price point because it's a relatively expensive product. Sometimes, when the customer use case is just a very small subset of what's being offered in IBM DataPower Gateway, then the product can be expensive, making my company lose some of the opportunities because of the expensive pricing. A lower price point for IBM DataPower Gateway, even if that results in a less feature-rich version, would be appreciated. In terms of additional features that I'd like to see in the next release of IBM DataPower Gateway, nothing specific comes to mind because IBM constantly improves its standards and provides quarterly updates to the product, so it's quite fine."
"The solution requires a lot of training manuals in order to get to know it better and to be able to use it effectively."
"The IBM community does not have much engagement from the IT community in Saudi Arabia and developers for this solution are difficult to find."
"The components that they include in the product that are, in fact, a WTX, really need to be removed from the product because they tend to fail."
"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"The main challenge, in my opinion, is the price. It's difficult to convince our management to approve the budget to purchase it from our vendor. There are no technical problems."
"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"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."
"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."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"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."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which API Management solutions are best for your needs.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DataPower Gateway vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.