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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs Microsoft Azure API Management 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
Microsoft Azure API Management
Ranking in API Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 6.6%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure API Management is 18.5%, down from 19.7% 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.
Rajiv Bala Balasubramanian - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently manages and monetizes API
It is a scalable solution. You can add more computing power to your APM gateway. It also gives you the ability to have VNet integrations with your on-prem. It is one of the leading products in the API management space. It is not just software for users but software to handle requests. For example, for a B2C e-commerce store, all requests that users make from within the store pass through this API gateway. So it is defined by the number of requests to the API gateway, not by the number of actual users who use it. If you look at the number of requests, it would be a lot from all the different systems we have within Pampers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"The solution provides good performance."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"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 mediation and translation from SOAP to REST technology makes it possible to open up legacy systems that couldn't be opened before."
"I like the API Management functions."
"Security is the top feature of Azure API Management."
"The tool helps to manage APIs."
"Everything is already available and ready to operate without a lot of preparation work."
"We use Microsoft due to the stability of the company."
"We're pretty much using all of the monetizations features out of the API manager so we can put up a portal and have a dev portal and then a prod portal and do rate limiting."
"The Azure Active Directory Synchronization is quite good."
 

Cons

"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."
"Kong Enterprise fails to provide live tracing of the APIs, which is possible nowadays."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"The software version upgrade process should be improved."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"Azure API Management could be improved with better integration with all of Microsoft's tools."
"From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance."
"Latency is an area that needs improvement, especially for multi-tenant applications."
"Microsoft Azure API Management needs to improve stability."
"Azure API Management lacks integration capabilities seen in other tools."
"The product's navigation feature needs enhancement."
"It would be better if it were easier to transition to Azure from JIRA. For example, different nomenclature must be performed when you shift to Azure from JIRA. JIRA's storage, tasks, and ethics are treated differently from Azure. Here they might become functions, which is not an option in JIRA because that nomenclature difference is there. If someone has to get into the nomenclature, then there can be different tasks from clients, and here, they may be treated as functions. JIRA has sub-tasks, but sub-tasks don't exist in Azure. The nomenclature and the linking between ethics and a function and a story are different, and people may have to learn to adapt to the new nomenclature."
"The documentation could be improved for the customer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"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."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"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."
"The developer and standard pricing tiers of Azure API Management are very competitive compared to other products."
"Since this is a cloud-based solution you have to abide by those financial limits, this creates some different challenges compared to other solutions."
"Azure API Management is the most expensive solution on the market."
"Because of our partner relationship, our pricing is pretty decent. But in general, if I compare pricing, I think the initial offer that we got from Microsoft until the relationship kicked in was more expensive than AWS. There were some unexpected expenses because we had to pause. This was due to our inexperience and because we were doing this significant public cloud migration for the first time. We were using SAP on a public cloud for the first time."
"The solution appears cheaper because it's a cloud SaaS model."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"We pay for a yearly license."
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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
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
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 Apigee differ from Azure API Management?
Apigee offers both cloud-based and on-prem options while Microsoft Azure API Management currently only offers a cloud-based solution. Both solutions are easy to use. Apigee allows for the ability...
Which is better - Azure API Management or Amazon API Gateway?
If you use Azure products, API Management is a great solution. It solves many of the problems of externalizing web services. For example, when you need versioning, establish a developer portal and ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure API Management?
Microsoft Azure API Management is a good, comprehensive solution for enterprise implementation.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure API Management, MS Azure API Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
adnymics GmbH, LG CNS, Centrebet, netfabb GmbH, MedPlast, Accelera Solutions, Sochi Organizing Committee, realzeit GmbH, Opensistemas
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.