We compared Kong Enterprise and Tyk based on our users reviews in five parameters. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Users found the installation process for Kong Enterprise to be straightforward and efficient, typically taking about 15 to 20 minutes. However, a few individuals encountered difficulties with Lua script and professional support. In contrast, Tyk had a fast and uncomplicated setup, although it necessitated some configuration work prior to deployment.
Kong Enterprise offers distinctive network services, authentication and authorization features, and customizable Lua scripts. In contrast, Tyk is commended for its functionality, design, and user-friendly UX/UI. Nevertheless, it has constraints in the cloud version and is still in its early stages.
Kong Enterprise could enhance its pricing, automatic data API creation, customization for integration, solutions for east-west communications, scaling up process, and developer portal. Meanwhile, Tyk has potential for improvement in terms of flexibility, customization options, programming capabilities, custom headers, and documentation generation for APIs.
Kong Enterprise's setup cost is determined by factors like scale, licenses, and usage. It is more expensive than comparable options, but there is a free community version. In contrast, Tyk's pricing and licensing differ based on the version chosen. The licensed version incurs a fee, while the open-source version is cost-free.
Customers appreciate Kong Enterprise's customer service for the availability and helpfulness of their technical team, especially when it comes to Lua plugin installation. On the other hand, Tyk's customer service is efficient and timely, with helpful communication. However, it falls short in terms of providing support for multiple programming languages.
Comparison Results
When comparing Kong Enterprise and Tyk, the installation process for both products is generally smooth and easy. Kong Enterprise has an advantage in initial setup with its plugin-based network services and excellent plugin support. Tyk is praised for its functionality and design, with a user-friendly UX and UI. Kong Enterprise offers more customization options with Lua script, while Tyk lacks flexibility in its cloud version. Pricing for Kong Enterprise is influenced by factors such as scale and licenses, while Tyk offers an open-source version without licensing costs. Both products have good customer service, although Tyk may need improvement in supporting multiple programming languages.
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"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."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"The tool's scalability is good...The solution's technical support is good."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"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."
"You can set up workflows and write limited pieces of logic."
"The portal for developers that this solution provides has great functionality."
"The scalability is very good. That was a key factor in the selection, like how it could be pushed to high volume and scalability, which seemed to be very good."
"It is a good product for API management."
"The feature I find most valuable is that this solution allows us to manage our security."
"The most valuable feature is the load balancing with the circuit-breaker function."
"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."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"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 OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"We would like a better tool for generating documentation for the APIs to be developed."
"I would like to see some additional features like having some extensions for .NET core because we use it for our back-end language."
"In terms of our usage, the main area of concern is that they tend to build enhancements slightly ahead of the considerations for what those enhancements and extensions are. So it could be slightly better communication with the customer base that would be my main issue with them."
"It is a young product and does not have the kind of brand recognition that would make it a more popular solution with our clients."
"We ran it for a while, but then we decided to move away from Tyk, because Tyk's cloud version, the SaaS version, has a significant limitation of limited flexibility, so you can't program very much."
"Sometimes when new features are released, they are not immediately stable."
Kong Gateway Enterprise is ranked 6th in API Management with 18 reviews while Tyk is ranked 17th in API Management with 6 reviews. Kong Gateway Enterprise is rated 7.8, while Tyk is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Kong Gateway Enterprise writes "Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tyk writes "Simple to install, has many features, but lacks support for multiple programming languages". Kong Gateway Enterprise is most compared with Microsoft Azure API Management, WSO2 API Manager, Apigee and MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, whereas Tyk is most compared with Apache APISIX, Traefik Enterprise, Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management and MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager. See our Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Tyk report.
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