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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs MuleSoft API Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.7%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 26, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

AmitKanodia - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script
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.
Dipanjan_Nandi - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable testing stubs and policy enforcement with room for better security and cost management
From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available. Features like monetization and advanced security, which are present in Apigee, are missing. I also want the API Manager to be used as a separate product apart from MuleSoft's other integration solutions. Additionally, the licensing cost is high, and many clients are looking to switch due to this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides good performance."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"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."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The most important features are the API management and API development."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability."
"The MuleSoft Exchange and the Experience Hub stand out as the most valuable features."
"It provides various advantages in the integration field, including support for Azure services and cloud integrations."
"The scalability is good. It's passable."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager has the most valuable data components and can integrate APIs across multiple microservices."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to investigate APIs."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
 

Cons

"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"They could focus more on pricing."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"There are some loopholes in the security policies that could be improved."
"Anypoint could be improved by making it more open and configurable for small companies, who tend not to consider the solution as it's expensive and requires a lot of costs upfront."
"With respect to the live help, I have language issues because I can't understand some of the things that I hear."
"Migrating any existing middleware platform to Mulesoft is difficult because of the transformation, conversion and integration involved. Better tools are needed to achieve quicker time to market."
"The product's price should be available for public review since it is not currently available for others to see, making it one of the areas where the product has certain shortcomings."
"I'd like to see improvements in API Exchange. Currently, we can only expose APIs publicly. I want to categorize some APIs and expose them just to internal stakeholders. It would be great if they could log in to a developer portal, see our current APIs, view Swagger or RAML docs, and try request-response payloads."
"Better documentation to help explain each of the features would be really helpful."
"Since most components are situated in the cloud, there's one particular hosted in the cloud. This presents a considerable challenge. While all other components are implemented on-premises, this specific one isn't permitted to be hosted in the cloud as per customer requirements. Shifting this component to an on-premises environment requires a significant effort."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"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 reasonable for our company size."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"The licensing is expensive."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"Pricing can be improved."
"Our customers have a lot of concerns about the increased pricing. The customer feels MuleSoft is very costly, and they are also exploring other integration tools for a lesser price. Maybe we should retain the existing customers by offering some discounts. At least the existing customers can be retained this way. This is regarding the licensing part only because customers based out of North America and Europe have shown many concerns recently. They are a bit concerned about pricing."
"The product is expensive."
"The pricing is quite reasonable and affordable."
"I want MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager to be cheaper because when you scale up, it becomes very costly. Price-wise, I'd give it a seven out of ten."
"The solution looks more expensive on the surface because it builds all the functions into one core component or into an integrated suite of components."
"The pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful. We use an open-source tool called Konga for basic dashboard needs, but it lacks support. It would be bette...
How does Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
Convincing management about the costs due to the billing based on the number of cores is a challenge. MuleSoft is typically more expensive compared to using Java or Spring Boot ( /products/spring-b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Anypoint API Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.