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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs OpenLegacy 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

Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenLegacy
Ranking in API Management
36th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 7.1%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenLegacy is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Kong Gateway Enterprise7.1%
OpenLegacy0.5%
Other92.4%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sudhanshu Dev - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom plugin capability with enhanced high traffic handling and lightweight performance
We use Kong for our API gateway, handling all public traffic. It is an open-source tool, and even though we are a startup, it provides us with stability without incurring high costs initially Kong has helped us by performing smoothly even when we receive millions of requests, which prevents any…
reviewer1042905 - PeerSpot reviewer
The biggest advantage is how simple the technology was.
I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be. OpenLegacy handles the bread-and-butter TP monitoring stuff, but I am working for one of the six banks in the United States still using the Hogan mainframe, which has a slightly proprietary mechanism. But OpenLegacy currently doesn't have a connector for Hogan. So it would help if they could build one. That would appeal to financial institutions that still use Hogan, like US Bank, Wells Fargo, KeyBank, and Vanguard.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"Kong's most valuable features are its lightweight performance when handling millions of requests and the ability to write custom plugins to enhance security, such as end-to-end encryption, even in the open-source version."
"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."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"Using mainframe programs (not screens), the OpenLegacy services do not require any changes by the mainframe programmers, thus reducing development cycles."
"The biggest advantage of OpenLegacy was how simple the technology was. We were able to build out the OpenLegacy parts very quickly. We put together a couple hundred APIs in six months."
"OpenLegacy produces a war file which includes everything you need to deploy a Tomcat server."
"Opens the door to connect modern web products to an old legacy system."
"It is possible to connect a service to a mainframe program or back transaction in a matter of minutes or hours at the most."
"It is possible to solve larger legacy API issues on an enterprise level with this product."
"OpenLegacy provides a way to go from the outside world to the legacy mainframe, to move the old standard application to a REST API application. New digital services can be created in a few clicks and this can be done easily by COBOL programmers."
"Using OpenLegacy, the exposure of services is far easier and quicker. In many cases, exposure of services requires just a few clicks and takes only minutes. In very complex cases, it still only takes half a day. Without OpenLegacy, it would take us several months to create the same services."
 

Cons

"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"I would like to see SSL out-of-the-box. OpenLegacy certainly does SSL, but it was not the default for our use case. We are currently working with OpenLegacy to cross the SSL bridge and suspect that most users will want to do the same."
"Customer support for the product is slow and not very good. It makes using the product difficult if you need help quickly."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
"I'd like to see OpenLegacy develop its low-code/no-code (LCNC) solutions. They've expanded somewhat their horizons for integration beyond mainframe CICS, which is their sweet spot. They have some tooling in that area, but it's not as good as it needs to be."
"We would also be more than happy if the product had the option to work in the opposite direction – the ability to consume REST/SOW services in the outer world from the mainframe."
"Debugging and logging for programmers could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is expensive."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible and allow for once-off payment versus annual licensing. This would be more appealing to companies in Latin America."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

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?
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 ...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Many of openLegacy's global customers are among the Global 100 companies. Review case studies in these industries: Agriculture, Airport Authority, Automotive, Auto, Finance, Insurance, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Retailwww.openlegacy.com/case-studie...
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. OpenLegacy and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.