Kong Enterprise vs Layer7 API Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kong Enterprise and Layer7 API Management 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.
To learn more, read our detailed Kong Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good.""This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution.""Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support.""I like everything about it. It provides the security we need.""In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions.""The route limiting feature is very valuable.""The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools.""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."

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"I work for an information security company. CA API Management is capable of using tokens for authorization to manage access control for the APIs.""The mobile access gateway (MAG) is tremendous.""The product documentation helps the client and/or user to evolve quickly while using the tool.""Key features include: lightweight mediation, transformation from JSON to XML and XML to JSON, API portal and API key management, the Developer Portal, and Circuit Breaker is a cool feature, too.""Has great drag-and-drop features and requires minimal coding.""It impresses me as a product because it never goes down. It always does what it is supposed to do.""Easy to use, nice UI, and good search functionality.""It has improved API governance and gives analytics to API performance."

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Cons
"They could focus more on pricing.""The developer portal needs to be improved.""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.""The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky.""The technical support team's response time needs to be improved.""The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise.""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.""We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."

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"They should incorporate deeper monitoring features into the solution to make the offering more complete. Doing so would help to showcase traffic patterns and usage to better engage customers and partners proactively. It would also help with API management and capacity planning.""Layer7 API Management’s price could be reduced.""It would be nice if we could create APIs directly from Swagger files. We're doing that ourselves with a middle layer. But if you could integrate with open API Swagger specs, and then just create a Swagger and upload it to the gateway and it would create all my API template policy, and would apply the OAuth restrictions, the types of security restrictions I have on there, that would be pretty cool.""​The initial setup was very complex.""We have experienced technical difficulties with the product in the past.""As well as the SOA Gateway - that is, the API Gateway; we call it the SOA Gateway - we also are now deploying the developer portal component of the SOA Gateway. That has limitations.""We are looking for improvements related to integration. We want to see them add integration tools to the CA bundle. That would be helpful.""The Policy Manager tool that is used to manage the solution is very heavy to use because it is based in Java. Sometimes it takes a long time to load. There could be some improvements to it. If they could make Policy Manager on a web page that would be a good alternative."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The licensing fees are paid yearly."
  • "The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
  • "There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
  • "I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
  • "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."
  • "Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
  • More Kong Enterprise Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "CA has great pricing for gateways, so negotiate with your sales team."
  • "If the CA pricing for API management would be a little lower, they would be able to cover a broader market."
  • "Purchase 4.0 now and wait until they flush out the 4.1 problems."
  • "It depends on your use case of course, how much you want to go with that, because it can get pricey and depends on the size of your company."
  • "Be aware of additional licenses for your warm standby. Ensure you get plenty of non-production licenses."
  • "Do not buy piecemeal."
  • "It's my manager who takes care of the pricing. But I keep on hearing that it's a little pricey, it's on the higher side. That is what he says."
  • "Pricing is competitive. CA is ready to offer attractive discounts."
  • More Layer7 API Management Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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 one… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools.
    Top Answer:The technical support team's response time needs to be improved. Kong Enterprise should improve its resiliency when it comes to the active DR setup.
    Top Answer:Layer7 API Management's availability on an on-premises deployment model, actually decreases the production time if its users have any issues at the server level.
    Top Answer:I recently got to know through some of my sources that there is a lack of support for customers from Broadcom's end. Broadcom's technical support team needs improvement. Broadcom's technical support… more »
    Ranking
    6th
    out of 64 in API Management
    Views
    14,560
    Comparisons
    10,993
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    413
    Rating
    7.8
    10th
    out of 64 in API Management
    Views
    7,136
    Comparisons
    5,371
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    463
    Rating
    7.8
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    Layer7 API Management is a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to securely expose, manage, and monetize their APIs. 

    It provides features such as API gateway, developer portal, analytics, and security to ensure seamless integration and control over API traffic. 

    With Layer7 API Management, businesses can streamline their API operations and drive innovation.

    Sample Customers
    Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
    1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm40%
    Computer Software Company27%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Insurance Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Insurance Company10%
    Retailer8%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Large Enterprise70%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise71%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise76%
    Buyer's Guide
    Kong Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Kong Enterprise is ranked 6th in API Management with 16 reviews while Layer7 API Management is ranked 10th in API Management with 108 reviews. Kong Enterprise is rated 7.8, while Layer7 API Management is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Kong Enterprise writes "Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Layer7 API Management writes "Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding ". Kong Enterprise is most compared with Microsoft Azure API Management, WSO2 API Manager, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and Apache APISIX, whereas Layer7 API Management is most compared with Apigee, Amazon API Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, Microsoft Azure API Management and IBM API Connect. See our Kong Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management report.

    See our list of best API Management vendors.

    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.