Kong Gateway Enterprise vs OpenLegacy comparison

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Kong Gateway Enterprise

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

OpenLegacy and Kong Gateway Enterprise are prominent players in the API management and integration market. OpenLegacy has an advantage in cost-efficiency and usability for legacy systems, while Kong Gateway Enterprise is recognized for its extensive features suitable for microservices architecture.

Features: OpenLegacy excels in seamless legacy application integration, offers fast API creation, and is adaptable to various environments. Kong Gateway Enterprise is known for robust API management, scalability, and cloud-native environment support.

Room for Improvement: OpenLegacy could enhance scalability features and extend support for modern architectures. It might benefit from advanced security options and more robust monitoring tools. Kong Gateway Enterprise could focus on simplifying its deployment process, reducing initial configuration complexity, and lowering setup costs for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenLegacy is praised for its simple deployment and minimal configuration requirements, providing efficient customer support. Kong Gateway Enterprise, while more complex to deploy due to extensive capabilities, is supported by comprehensive tools tailored for microservices with responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: OpenLegacy is appealing due to lower setup costs and rapid ROI from its seamless integration with existing infrastructure. Kong Gateway Enterprise, although requiring a higher initial investment, provides significant ROI with a comprehensive feature set that enhances functionality in large-scale environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. OpenLegacy Report (Updated: June 2026).

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. OpenLegacy

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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

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

OpenLegacy

Ranking in API Management

32nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Software Development (94th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the API Management category, the mindshare of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 4.3%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenLegacy is 1.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

API Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Kong Gateway Enterprise	4.3%
OpenLegacy	1.3%
Other	94.4%

API Management

Featured Reviews

KuntalSaha

Business Consultant at Ernst & Young

Modernization projects have progressed well but documentation and security guidance still need work

Bringing in additional features to Kong Gateway Enterprise would not necessarily help it. Improving the existing features, increasing security, and adding robustness would be more beneficial. The focus should be on stabilizing the product, improving it, and increasing the documentation. Kong should focus on how the product can be self-onboarded or self-implemented, as this would ease and help customers significantly. The necessary deployment of Kong Gateway Enterprise, API management, and guidance on how customers can use it or improve that area would be helpful. Security is a major concern, especially with new security architecture coming into place. These are the areas that should be prioritized. Beyond these areas, I do not see anything lacking. Kong Gateway Enterprise is quite comprehensive.

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reviewer1042905

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."

"Kong is great at organising our API ecosystem and providing the required manageability, scalability, observability and security."

"The solution provides good performance."

"The price is reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."

"It boasts remarkable speed and stability, and these qualities, particularly the gateway's resilience, are standout features for me."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pros

"The product has helped our business by allowing us to become more efficient in data handling."

"Using mainframe programs (not screens), the OpenLegacy services do not require any changes by the mainframe programmers, thus reducing development cycles."

"The biggest advantage of OpenLegacy was how simple the technology was, and we were able to build out the OpenLegacy parts very quickly, putting together a couple hundred APIs in six months."

"Without OpenLegacy, it would take us several months to create the same services."

"OpenLegacy opens the door to connect modern web products to our old legacy system."

"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 speed of development of production, especially in specific environments like IBM mainframes, has been valuable."

More OpenLegacy pros

Cons

"Because it is open-source, it should be less expensive than others."

"The open-source version of Kong does not support a dashboard, which would be very helpful."

"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."

"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."

"They could focus more on pricing."

"The main challenge, in my opinion, is the price. It's difficult to convince our management to approve the budget to purchase it from our vendor. There are no technical problems."

"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."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise cons

"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."

"Customer support for the product is slow and not very good. It makes using the product difficult if you need help quickly."

"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."

"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."

"Debugging and logging for programmers could be better."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."

"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."

"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."

"The product is reasonably priced because it goes by the SaaS model."

"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."

"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."

More Kong Gateway Enterprise pricing and cost advice

"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%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Construction Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Large Enterprise	20

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 ...

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What needs improvement with Kong Enterprise?

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What is your primary use case for Kong Enterprise?

Our primary use cases for Kong Gateway Enterprise are modernizations, migrations, and digitalizations of financial institutions. These are the primary areas we are looking for.

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Product Reports

Kong Gateway Enterprise

Download Kong Gateway Enterprise product report

Download OpenLegacy product report

Overview

Kong Gateway Enterprise is an advanced API management platform offering seamless integration, robust security features, and flexible deployment options for modern enterprises needing efficient API handling.

Kong Gateway Enterprise stands out with its plugin-based network services and ease of implementation in Kubernetes environments. It delivers robust API governance, impressive rate limiting, and customization with Lua scripts. Enhanced with high-performance handling and AI-driven functionality, it supports efficient API monetization. It also ensures competitive pricing, scalability, and strong community support.

What are the key features of Kong Gateway Enterprise?

Plugin-Based Services: Allows easy customization and integration.
Security: Delivers comprehensive API security options.
Rate Limiting: Offers control over API traffic for better performance.
Deployment Flexibility: Supports cloud environments effortlessly.
AI Integration: Enhances functionality with AI-driven applications.

What benefits and ROI should users consider in Kong Gateway Enterprise?

Ease of Use: Simplifies API management tasks.
Scalability: Supports growth with robust infrastructure.
Customizability: Tailors API management with Lua scripts.
Community Support: Offers strong resources and collaboration opportunities.
API Monetization: Enables revenue opportunities through efficient management.

Organizations across finance, IoT, manufacturing, and e-commerce sectors implement Kong Gateway Enterprise to streamline microservices deployment and integration. It manages API security and traffic while providing observability and scalability. The platform enables integration with IDPs and other systems, securing extensive API ecosystems.

Kong

OpenLegacy integrates legacy customer data with REST APIs, speeding up mobile transactions and code updates while simplifying API development. Its open-source platform offers flexibility, benefiting mainframe environments and Tomcat server deployments.

OpenLegacy is crucial for organizations aiming to integrate modern web applications with legacy systems. The platform is widely used in financial and logistics sectors to enable quick access to customer data and transactions, effectively monetizing mainframe assets. By facilitating the rapid creation of numerous APIs, OpenLegacy supports seamless interactions between applications, allowing modern web form inputs into legacy systems. Its flexibility and extensive capabilities simplify API development and deployment, proving valuable for those managing day-to-day banking and transaction data. However, room for improvement includes better debugging, logging, SSL integration, flexible pricing options, and support availability, especially for Hogan mainframe users.

What features define OpenLegacy?

REST API Integration: Facilitates integration with mobile transactions.
Faster Code Updates: Delivers efficiency in code changes for mainframe environments.
Open-Source Flexibility: Offers customization and broad capabilities.
Tomcat Deployment: Supports straightforward deployment via Tomcat servers.
Rapid API Development: Enables swift creation of multiple APIs.

What ROI benefits should users expect?

Legacy System Monetization: Transforms mainframe assets into profit.
Improved Integration: Enhances access to critical customer data and transactions.
Efficient Operations: Streamlines daily banking and transaction management.
Cost-Effectiveness: Flexibility and open-source nature reduce expenses.
Enhanced Interoperability: Allows seamless interaction between old and new applications.

Financial and logistics companies leverage OpenLegacy to link web applications with legacy systems, ensuring quick customer data and transaction access. This integration supports rapid solution building and efficient management of banking and transaction data, particularly benefiting institutions like US Bank and Wells Fargo needing comprehensive Hogan mainframe connectors.

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...

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. OpenLegacy