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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Layer7 API Management 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
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Layer7 API Management
Ranking in API Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
112
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 Layer7 API Management is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

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.
Ronald D'Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Has great drag-and-drop features and it requires minimal coding
I have mainly implemented using Layer 7 API Management. Some of the major challenges we were able to meet with a quick release to market methodology. Some of the tasks which we achieved for our customers were: 1. Translation service from SOAP to REST and vice versa. 2. API service to DB (Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA) -- Created Swagger APIs that were able to perform CRUD operation to the backend API mentioned above and provided routes to query and get data. 3. Integration with Payment gateway service providers to perform (transaction on behalf of the customer with third-party payment gateway service providers white labeled with our APIs ) -- Followed TMF standards for payment gateway integration with the Telcom world. 4. Orchestration of the API. Build multiple microservers and provided orchestration based on route, path, and data in the request and perform actions that would be communicated with multiple APIs and provide a single consolidated response. 5. Provided API-driven security (Oauth 2.0, JWT, SAML, Basic, and a variety of means) to access the API giving the developer the freedom to concentrate only on application/service/microservice and let the gateway handle the threat. 6. Seamless Mutual Authentication allowed good segregation between APIs in the DMZ and internal network.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I like include ease of operation and implementation in a cloud environment, the dashboarding features for API statistics, and the user-friendly developer portal."
"Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users."
"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."
"It offers a wide range of plugins that we leverage, including OIDC, Rate Limiting, Lambda functions, and more."
"The route limiting feature is very valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"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."
"API Enhanced Portal 4.1 looks very promising. API Gateway policy manager for writing policies is excellent. It is the best in the industry for policy writing."
"The out-of-the-box security features are useful. Right now, you can just right-click and drag and drop the assertions with the rate limit. That, as well as the x-amount surge protection, is built in so we can bring that in."
"A big win for CA was the expertise of the local country support plus having support staff on site in a matter of hours, if required."
"I appreciate Layer 7 API management for its comprehensive approach to the entire API lifecycle, including governance, management, and analytics."
"You can create little, custom Java assertions that you can insert to do your business logic, which might not be covered by the commercial product out-of-the-box."
"I love the API Gateway, especially the architecture, in terms of the composability of the policies. We approach it from a very software-engineering approach.We build on the policies, like legal blocks, and we deploy them throughout different environments. It's been working out great for us."
"Tech support is fast and responsive."
"Ease of use."
 

Cons

"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve in areas like documentation and UI."
"We are looking for improvements related to integration. We want to see them add integration tools to the CA bundle. That would be helpful."
"The UI design could be improved in the next release."
"Needs to work better with DB2 UDB."
"Provide complete documentation with examples of usage on its build in assertion/function."
"The development toolkit used for creating APIs should be more online and user-friendly. Deployment and tracking could also be improved. Tools like Apigee provide a complete online experience along with RESTful APIs, to manage all activities. It is a very nice and user-friendly solution compared to CA."
"We have experienced technical difficulties with the product in the past."
"The architecture of the solution does not allow for flexibility in using different components for the gateway architecture."
"The Portal is not stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"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."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"This solution is a bit more expensive than competitors."
"There is an annual license for the use of this solution. I think we are paying for some support maintenance fees, included in that license. I don't know how it works. They should provide more information."
"There are various licensing models for Layer7 API Management. We have to buy additional licenses to get new versions."
"Pricing is competitive. CA is ready to offer attractive discounts."
"The product is moderately priced."
"The price of Layer7 API Management is reasonable compared to Apigee."
"It's my manager who takes care of the pricing. But I keep on hearing that it's a little pricey, it's on the higher side. That is what he says."
"It has a reasonable pricing model by instance."
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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
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Layer7 API Management?
Pricing is more than average. While I am used to Layer7 API Management ( /products/layer7-api-management-reviews ), seeing other products makes the tool's pricing seem high.
What needs improvement with Layer7 API Management?
Broadcom's push for upgrades from version nine to ten, ten to 10.3, and onwards to twelve needs improvement in migration processes, especially with service dependencies. The migration path sometime...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA API Management, CA Live API Creator, Espresso Logic, CA API Gateway
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
1. IBM  2. Microsoft  3. Oracle  4. Salesforce  5. SAP  6. Cisco  7. Dell  8. HP  9. Adobe  10. VMware  11. Accenture  12. Capgemini  13. Deloitte  14. PwC  15. Ernst & Young  16. Infosys  17. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)  18. Wipro  19. Cognizant  20. HCL Technologies  21. Tech Mahindra  22. Fujitsu  23. Hitachi  24. NEC  25. NTT Data  26. Ericsson  27. Nokia  28. Siemens  29. AT&T  30. Verizon  31. Vodafone  32. Orange
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Layer7 API Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.