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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Empowers API Management with Ease, Despite Initial Setup Hurdles
What do you like best about the product?
I like that Kong Gateway is a very useful tool for building secure and scalable applications. It helps me organize, secure, and manage all my APIs easily in one place. What I liked is that many features, like security and rate limiting, can be added easily without much coding. I like how it makes managing and securing APIs simple and organized. I enjoy its speed and how smoothly it integrates with my work.
What do you dislike about the product?
Initial setup can be tricky and debugging could be simpler. Debugging is sometimes hard because errors aren't clear. Clearer error messages or a visual dashboard could make it easier.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong Gateway helps securely manage and organize all my APIs efficiently, handling traffic smoothly. It simplifies adding features like security and rate limiting without much coding and integrates well with my workflow.
Robust API Governance and Identity Controls with Kong Gateway
What do you like best about the product?
Kong Gateway provides a robust set of API rules, policies, governance, and identity controls for proper shielding and protection of assets.
What do you dislike about the product?
The Kong Gateway does so many things, and the options are numerous that being focused on particular use cases with specific configuration can be daunting.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Main problem Kong Gateway is solving is a shielding aspect for core software programs and keeping misbehaving systems from interfering with functional activities.
Future-Ready Kong: Thoughtful Features, Flexible Automation, and Great Support
What do you like best about the product?
I started working with Kong about six months ago as a beginner. What I appreciate most about Kong is that the features they release are well thought‑out and come ready for use. Most capabilities can be easily performed through the UI, CLI, or Admin API, which makes automation straightforward and flexible. Kong also supports a wide range of architectures, from legacy setups to modern, cloud‑native designs. Their development process is strong, user feedback is actively considered, enhancements are delivered quickly, and the overall support experience has been very good. This has made learning and working with the platform much easier and more effective.
The introduction of AI Gateway capabilities further positions Kong ahead of the market, making it a future‑ready platform.
The introduction of AI Gateway capabilities further positions Kong ahead of the market, making it a future‑ready platform.
What do you dislike about the product?
One area where I see room for improvement is that some capabilities which were previously available—and are still relevant and commonly expected in the API gateway space—have been deprecated or are no longer supported. For example, earlier versions allowed API products to be created with the same name, which enabled a single‑organization model while differentiating environments such as Production and Non‑Production, and publishing them to their respective developer portals.
With the v3 Developer Portal, this is no longer supported, as API products must have globally unique names. This results in a less optimal user experience or requires maintaining separate organizations for Production and Non‑Production, which in turn increases operational and maintenance overhead. It would be valuable to revisit this capability to better support common enterprise environment‑segregation use cases.
With the v3 Developer Portal, this is no longer supported, as API products must have globally unique names. This results in a less optimal user experience or requires maintaining separate organizations for Production and Non‑Production, which in turn increases operational and maintenance overhead. It would be valuable to revisit this capability to better support common enterprise environment‑segregation use cases.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Based on my experience with Kong, one feature I particularly appreciate is the ability to assign approvers to individual APIs as part of the self‑service journey, without requiring any external approval workflow. This was something we struggled to implement in our previous developer portal. Additionally, Kong makes it very easy to integrate with observability and monitoring tools such as OpenTelemetry and Splunk, enabling seamless visibility into API behavior and performance.
Flexible, High-Performance API Management at Scale with Kong Gateway
What do you like best about the product?
What I like best about Kong Gateway is its flexibility and ease of managing APIs at scale. It provides a strong plugin ecosystem, solid performance, and smooth integration with Kubernetes and cloud-native environments. I also appreciate the centralized control it gives for security, traffic management, and observability, which makes operations much more efficient for both developers and platform teams.
What do you dislike about the product?
What I dislike most about Kong Gateway is that it can feel complex to configure and manage at first, especially for teams that are new to API gateways or service mesh concepts. Some advanced features also seem better suited to larger organizations, which can make it feel heavy for simpler use cases. In addition, troubleshooting and understanding plugin interactions can sometimes take more time than expected.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong Gateway is solving the challenge of securely exposing, managing, and monitoring APIs across multiple services and environments. Instead of handling authentication, rate limiting, routing, and observability separately in each service, we can centralize those capabilities in one platform. That reduces duplication, improves consistency, and makes it easier to enforce policies across teams.
The main benefit for me is simpler API operations. It helps improve security, speeds up onboarding for new services, and gives better visibility into traffic and performance. As a result, we spend less time on repetitive infrastructure work and more time delivering actual product features.
The main benefit for me is simpler API operations. It helps improve security, speeds up onboarding for new services, and gives better visibility into traffic and performance. As a result, we spend less time on repetitive infrastructure work and more time delivering actual product features.
Performance Powerhouse with Strong Security Features
What do you like best about the product?
I really like Kong Gateway for its performance and flexibility. It’s great how it’s built from the engines of Kong and can handle tasks with low latency, making it a strong fit for environments where performance is crucial. The plugin-based architecture is a huge advantage, making it straightforward to extend functionality for things like authentication, logging, and rate limiting without overcomplicating the core setup.
What do you dislike about the product?
I think it would be helpful to have more real case scenarios where companies use Kong Gateway. The initial setup was not easy. I recommend that Kong provides more real case scenarios or company use examples.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use Kong Gateway to secure and manage API traffic. It helps me maintain a strong security environment in my API setup and gives me a solid foundation in routing and flow management.
Go-To Multicloud API Gateway with Highly Scalable Performance
What do you like best about the product?
One of the goto solutions for all your API gateway needs in multicloud environments providing highly scalable solutions.
What do you dislike about the product?
Dealing with Enterprise restrictions, plugins management & a few performance challenges
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Open source API gateway platform delivering all your organisation needs
Smooth Integration with User-Friendly UI
What do you like best about the product?
I like the UI of Kong Gateway. It solves our day-to-day needs and the team is very happy using it. The initial setup was very easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong Gateway addresses technical problems and integrates easily, which meets our day-to-day needs and keeps the team happy.
Scalable, Lightweight Gateway with Flexible Deployment Options
What do you like best about the product?
Compared to other gateways, it feels more scalable and lightweight in its architecture. It’s also easy to create a custom solution, and it offers multiple deployment options.
What do you dislike about the product?
More inbuilt plugin required like handling JSON and XML payloads
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong is helping us build and propose a custom, lightweight architecture solution compared to other API gateway solutions.
Incredible Speed, Rock-Solid Performance, and Total Control Over Security & Traffic
What do you like best about the product?
Its speed is incredible, and the performance doesn’t drop even under pressure. The best part is the complete control it gives you over security and traffic, which provides real peace of mind. On top of that, it adapts natively to any environment without any issues.
What do you dislike about the product?
The first few weeks can be difficult to get used to if you don’t have prior experience. Another drawback is the price; the enterprise version isn’t exactly cheap.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It’s totally worth it. The security is truly robust, and the speed is incredible; we haven’t experienced any system failures. Best of all, the scalability is real—it’s clearly designed to grow without interruption.
Modernization projects have progressed well but documentation and security guidance still need work
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I find the price of Kong Gateway Enterprise to be competitive. Price is not a concern for us, but based on our experience working with financial institutions, maintainability and security are the primary concerns and areas they focus on.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Kong Gateway Enterprise for five or six years.
How are customer service and support?
I do not have inputs on the technical support for Kong Gateway Enterprise, as those matters are handled by my architects. I have not heard any negative comments on the technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In my current organization at Ernst & Young, I am not certain whether they are partners with Kong, but I have not heard anything from them. My previous organization was a partner, not a reseller, and we never had any issues or problems.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for Kong Gateway Enterprise has been ongoing for some time.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Two of our customers are using Kong Gateway Enterprise as well as other API management solutions such as MuleSoft, APIM, Azure, or AWS. These are the major four API management tools being used across the board for our customers.
For us, implementing Kong Gateway Enterprise with existing infrastructures and the cloud in tandem requires more effort than implementing MuleSoft or Azure APIM or AWS. Their integrations, implementations, and documentation are quite comprehensive for us. The learning curve is also slightly higher with Kong than with the other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I cannot provide detailed information about Kong Gateway Enterprise's security features, but when setting up the entire infrastructure plus the open API framework, we have to set up the infrastructure security as a given.
I cannot provide details on implementations, but we have been using Kong Gateway Enterprise for our customers for some time. Based on my experience and my team's experience, I rate Kong Gateway Enterprise at a seven as a product.
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