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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
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
AI Software Development (83rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 5.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenLegacy is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Kong Gateway Enterprise5.8%
OpenLegacy0.9%
Other93.3%
API Management
 

Featured Reviews

ES
Enterprise Architect at El Al
Seamless integration and efficient security boost API management capabilities
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. I mostly missed local resellers or partners that we could use within our enterprise, because it was difficult for some tech personnel to work with remote tech support.
reviewer1042905 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Chief Enterprise Integration Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
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

"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"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."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"Kong Gateway Enterprise is quite comprehensive."
"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"In terms of stability, the tool's team has made some good efforts, and my company is very happy with the product's approach."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"It is possible to solve larger legacy API issues on an enterprise level with this product."
"OpenLegacy produces a war file which includes everything you need to deploy a Tomcat server."
"Using mainframe programs (not screens), the OpenLegacy services do not require any changes by the mainframe programmers, thus reducing development cycles."
"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."
"It is possible to connect a service to a mainframe program or back transaction in a matter of minutes or hours at the most."
"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."
"Opens the door to connect modern web products to an old legacy system."
"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

"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."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"They could focus more on pricing."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Customer support for the product is slow and not very good. It makes using the product difficult if you need help quickly."
"Debugging and logging for programmers could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"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
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise20
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: February 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.