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Kong Gateway Enterprise vs MuleSoft API Manager 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
MuleSoft API Manager
Ranking in API Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
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 MuleSoft API Manager is 4.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 26, 2021
 

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.
Dipanjan_Nandi - PeerSpot reviewer
Valuable testing stubs and policy enforcement with room for better security and cost management
From an API management perspective, MuleSoft's API Manager is not as powerful as some other tools available. Features like monetization and advanced security, which are present in Apigee, are missing. I also want the API Manager to be used as a separate product apart from MuleSoft's other integration solutions. Additionally, the licensing cost is high, and many clients are looking to switch due to this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"The solution provides good performance."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"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."
"The integration process was straightforward."
"The auto-creation of the API documentation is useful."
"The MuleSoft Exchange and the Experience Hub stand out as the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager are the API gateway, rate limiting, and orchestration."
"The ESB, the enterprise service bus is what we primarily use. In addition to that, the API management. These are the two tools which we have been using extensively. The enterprise platform."
"The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies."
"MuleSoft API Manager allows us to implement custom policies or use out-of-the-box policies, such as authentication policies, which save time."
"Anypoint API Manager's most valuable feature is its connectors."
 

Cons

"The OS upgrades are not as frequent as they should be and they are bulky."
"The technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
"From an improvement perspective, the product should offer more readily available connectors and also allow for more seamless AI integrations."
"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."
"They should develop on MuleSoft as it would be a good way of improving API monetization."
"The roadmap could include more GenAI use cases integrated into the platform, focusing on various industry verticals."
"There should be more pricing options or certain discounts for the education sector."
"The cost model could be improved."
"The initial setup is very complex."
"Their studio performance is very slow, it requires a lot of memory, and should be improved."
"One improvement is maybe to add a plugin in the API manager. Let's say an organisation is using SOAP services or legacy APIs. Maybe I don't want to migrate it to rest API, but my plugin should be able to convert Jason to XML. Basically, protocol transformation features in API Manager."
"The pricing is quite expensive. It should be adjusted to make it more affordable for users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Basically, my company uses the tool's open-source version."
"It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency)."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"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."
"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 pricing for this solution is cheaper than GCP and Bluemix."
"The licensing model is based on how many cores are used. It is a very simple licensing scheme."
"I want MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager to be cheaper because when you scale up, it becomes very costly. Price-wise, I'd give it a seven out of ten."
"Anypoint is the most expensive solution on the market, as far as I know, though it's also the most capable."
"The solution looks more expensive on the surface because it builds all the functions into one core component or into an integrated suite of components."
"The licensing fees are approximately $80,000 USD per year and there are costs for additional functionality, as well as premiums for connectors to systems such as Oracle and SAP."
"The price of Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is very high."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as six and a half to seven."
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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
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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 Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager compare with Amazon API Gateway?
I have found that Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager is the best integration tool out there for API management. It is easy to implement and learn; it provides several options for deployment, (including ...
What do you like most about Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution for securing APIs stem from the tool's ability to allow users to deploy policies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mulesoft Anypoint API Manager?
Convincing management about the costs due to the billing based on the number of cores is a challenge. MuleSoft is typically more expensive compared to using Java or Spring Boot ( /products/spring-b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Anypoint API Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Coca-Cola, Splunk, Citrix, UCSF, Vertu, State of Colorado, National Post, TiVo, Deakin, LLS, Oldcastle Precast, ParcelPoint, Justice Systems, Ube, Sumitomo Corporation, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Groupe Initiatives, Camelot, Panviva
Find out what your peers are saying about Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. MuleSoft API Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.