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Kong Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure API Management comparison

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Buyer's Guide
Kong Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management
September 2023
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kong Enterprise and Microsoft Azure 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. Microsoft Azure API Management Report (Updated: September 2023).
Download the complete report
744,865 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Which product performs better: Kong API Gateway or Azure API Management?
Answer: Both Kong API Gateway and Azure API Management are high-performance API Management tools. Here is some data on each tool's performance: Kong API Gateway In terms of throughput, Kong API Gateway can handle up to 100,000 requests per second. Kong API Gateway has a latency of 1 millisecond. The solution is highly scalable. Kong API Gateway offers many features, including security, rate limiting, and analytics. Azure API Management Regarding Azure API Management's throughput, it can handle up to 100,000 requests per second. The solution has a latency of 2 milliseconds. Azure API Management is also highly scalable. The solution also offers analytics, rate limiting, and security features. If you are looking for a solution with a high throughput and low latency, either tool could be a good choice but do keep in mind that: Azure API Management may be more expensive. Some may find Kong API Gateway more challenging to set up or configure. Azure API Management is a managed service from Microsoft. I would recommend that you try both solutions before making a decision.
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Featured Review
ItielMaayan
Is reasonably priced and easy to install
The concept of using central API gateway is the change, not the product. Kong was selected based on our CBA (choose between alternative) process.
Gabriel Anderson
Its most valuable feature is the ability to create policies and you can develop anything with them
We are using Azure API Management as a platform. We have a ServiceNow instance. We connect it to the internet to have an internal connection... Read more →
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need.""The solution provides good performance.""The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality.""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.""The route limiting feature is very valuable.""We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs.""Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise.""The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."

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"We're very satisfied with Azure API Management. We've had no issues with bugs, everything runs smoothly, and the connection between the cloud and the on-premise infrastructure was good.""The mediation and translation from SOAP to REST technology makes it possible to open up legacy systems that couldn't be opened before.""Azure API is scalable.""We use Microsoft due to the stability of the company.""Azure APIM's best features are its straightforward access management (it's a single point of access for all monitoring and logging and for policy implementation) and its integration with the Azure Cloud infrastructure.""I like the API Management functions.""I like that security features can be integrated with API Management. I also like that you can perform rate-limiting and throttling functions.""The UI management is very easy to use."

More Microsoft Azure API Management Pros →

Cons
"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.""The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise.""We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database.""It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters.""Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly.""Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays.""We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis.""The developer portal needs to be improved."

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"Azure is our most expensive resource; it's costly.""It should be easier to integrate.""I would like to see more security features become available.""I would like to see more integration with other platforms, as well as increased security.""Some of the DevOps stuff could be easier to work with. The migration paths are a little complicated, and moving code around could be more seamless. There should be less manual migration when several teams work together to publish code to the DevOps.""The product needs to introduce a developer portal.""The scalability of this solution could be improved. The volume which the API Management task service can handle needs to be improved. Cost wise, this solution could be optimized.""I rate the technical support from Microsoft Azure API Management a four out of five."

More Microsoft Azure API Management Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."

    • More Kong Enterprise Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Since everyone is isocentric here, it is reasonable for me."
  • "We pay for a yearly license."
  • "Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
  • "Azure's pricing is very competitive compared to platforms like Apigee and MuleSoft."
  • "Azure is a pay-as-you-go model. You build out your virtual environment and pay a monthly price depending on CPU cores, storage, etc."
  • "There are no additional costs above the main license."
  • "It's pay as you go. The subscription packages have room for different scales. It's calculated by the number of apps or computers you use. You do not have to use the enterprise subscription. These subscriptions have different pricing, so you can find one to meet your needs for scalability."
  • "Because of our partner relationship, our pricing is pretty decent. But in general, if I compare pricing, I think the initial offer that we got from Microsoft until the relationship kicked in was more expensive than AWS. There were some unexpected expenses because we had to pause. This was due to our inexperience and because we were doing this significant public cloud migration for the first time. We were using SAP on a public cloud for the first time."

    • More Microsoft Azure API Management Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    How does Kong Enterprise compare with Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
    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 »
    What do you like most about Kong Enterprise?
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools.
    Read all 10 answers   →
    What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?
    Top Answer:There is a tool called Apigee. Apigee has a portal where you can inspect the APIs and do a live tracing of the API, features that are missing in Kong Enterprise and Azure API Management. I am unsure… more »
    Read all 10 answers   →
    How does Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
    Top Answer: Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability… more »
    Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
    Top Answer:If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and… more »
    What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
    Top Answer:The tool's most valuable feature is the integration of CI/CD with the API gateway.
    Read all 43 answers   →
    Ranking
    9th
    out of 62 in API Management
    Views
    15,740
    Comparisons
    11,901
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    373
    Rating
    7.9
    1st
    out of 62 in API Management
    Views
    39,344
    Comparisons
    32,368
    Reviews
    39
    Average Words per Review
    439
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
    Learn More
    Kong
    Microsoft
    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.

    Microsoft Azure API Management is a reliable and scalable way to publish, consume, and manage APIs running on an Microsoft Azure platform. Azure API Management provides all essential tools required for end-to-end management of APIs. It ensures optimal performance of the APIs by tracking and enforcing usage and authentication.

    Microsoft Azure API Management is primarily used to provide a central interface to create, provision, and manage APIs for web and cloud applications and services. Today's innovative enterprises are adopting API architectures to accelerate growth. With Microsoft Azure API Management, businesses can streamline their work across hybrid and multi cloud environments with a unified place to manage all their APIs.


    Microsoft Azure API Management Features


    Microsoft Azure API Management has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Manage APIs across clouds and on premises: Optimize API traffic flow by deploying API gateways side by side with the APIs hosted in Azure, other clouds, and on premises. Meet security and compliance requirements with a unified management experience and full visibility across all APIs.
    • Customized usage limits: By applying authentication, authorization, and usage limits, you can protect your resources by controlling how data and services are exposed to employees, partners, and customers.
    • API-first approaches: Accelerate your business by building apps faster and delivering immediate value to customers through API-first approaches. This helps you decouple front- and back-end teams through API mocking, API revisions and versioning, and automated API documentation.
    • Customizable developer portal: Improve API discoverability by creating a customizable developer portal for all your APIs. This enables you to simply manage and share APIs with internal teams, external partners, and customers.
    • Facades for back-end services: Transform your existing services and automatically turn legacy web services into modern REST-based APIs using facades.
    • Security for your API’s: Keep all your APIs behind a single static IP or domain, and help protect them with tokens, keys, and IP filtering.

    Microsoft Azure API Management Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Microsoft Azure API Management. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Monitor the health of APIs, configure throttling, identify errors, and rate limits.
    • Enforce flexible and fine-grained quotas and rate limits. Modify the shape and behavior of your APIs using policies. Improve latency and scale your APIs with response caching.
    • Connect on-premises APIs to cloud services by creating a façade that lets you safely integrate.
    • Create and manage user roles and define end-to-end API usage policies.
    • Consolidate and manage thousands of APIs across multiple platforms in a central interface.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Microsoft Azure API Management stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its DevOps integration, its easy setup, and its dynamic pricing. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Cecil S., a Software Engineer, writes of the solution, “The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure API Management is the developer portal because it's very quick and easy to get something published."

    Dmitri E., an Integration Architect at MiBanco, notes, “In particular, in API Management, used as front-end APIs, it's easy to manage. We use Microsoft due to the stability of the company. It is easy to set up. The solution is scalable. It is stable as a product as well.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Kong Enterprise
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    Learn more about Microsoft Azure API Management
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    Sample Customers
    Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
    adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm27%
    Computer Software Company27%
    Comms Service Provider18%
    Insurance Company18%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Insurance Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business21%
    Large Enterprise79%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    Kong Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management
    September 2023
    Free Report: Kong Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management
    Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
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    744,865 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Kong Enterprise is ranked 9th in API Management with 8 reviews while Microsoft Azure API Management is ranked 1st in API Management with 39 reviews. Kong Enterprise is rated 7.8, while Microsoft Azure API Management is rated 8.0. 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 Microsoft Azure API Management writes "Easy to set up with good access control but support could be better". Kong Enterprise is most compared with MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, Amazon API Gateway, WSO2 API Manager, Apigee and Layer7 API Management, whereas Microsoft Azure API Management is most compared with Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, IBM API Connect and WSO2 API Manager. See our Kong Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure 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.