I use it as a gateway for our APIs. We have several hundred APIs here, so we use Kong Gateway Enterprise to manage and monitor them. In this application platform, we prefer to use the Kong Enterprise UI instead of the Kong Community Edition GUI.
External reviews
279 reviews
from
and
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Kong API Gateway is highly extensible but complex to configure.
What do you like best about the product?
Kong Gateway recently introduced several powerful features focused on AI readiness, performance, and enterprise-grade security. The latest version includes prompt compression to reduce LLM token usage and multimodal agent support for handling workflows across text, images, audio, and more. Earlier enhancements brought semantic caching, prompt guardrails, and intelligent routing—enabling the gateway to understand prompt intent, block unsafe content, and route requests to the most suitable AI model.
Core infrastructure has also been improved with incremental configuration sync for faster, lighter deployments and full OpenTelemetry integration for enhanced observability. Centralized config and consumer management through Kong Konnect make it easier to govern large-scale environments. Security features like PII sanitization, JSON threat protection, and certificate-based authentication further strengthen the platform. These updates position Kong Gateway as a smart, scalable solution for both traditional APIs and AI-driven traffic.
Core infrastructure has also been improved with incremental configuration sync for faster, lighter deployments and full OpenTelemetry integration for enhanced observability. Centralized config and consumer management through Kong Konnect make it easier to govern large-scale environments. Security features like PII sanitization, JSON threat protection, and certificate-based authentication further strengthen the platform. These updates position Kong Gateway as a smart, scalable solution for both traditional APIs and AI-driven traffic.
What do you dislike about the product?
While Kong Gateway is a powerful and feature-rich platform, there are still areas where it could improve to enhance usability and scalability. The developer experience, for instance, can be challenging—especially for newcomers. A more intuitive UI, better error messages during configuration, and clearer guidance within the dashboard would make it easier for teams to get started and manage complex setups. Additionally, while Kong offers a wide range of plugins, the documentation and transparency around which plugins are open-source, enterprise-only, or tied to Konnect could be more consistent. This would help users make informed decisions more easily.
Support for additional protocols like WebSocket, MQTT, or GraphQL subscriptions is another area of potential growth, especially for real-time and IoT use cases. High availability configurations and multi-region deployments, though possible, can be complex and would benefit from more streamlined tooling, templates, and cloud-native deployment guides. Rate limiting is solid for typical workloads, but for AI-driven or token-sensitive APIs, more advanced controls—such as token-based throttling—would be highly valuable. Lastly, integration between local setups (like decK) and Kong Konnect could be more seamless, especially for teams adopting GitOps workflows. Addressing these areas would make Kong Gateway even more developer-friendly, scalable, and ready for evolving enterprise needs.
Support for additional protocols like WebSocket, MQTT, or GraphQL subscriptions is another area of potential growth, especially for real-time and IoT use cases. High availability configurations and multi-region deployments, though possible, can be complex and would benefit from more streamlined tooling, templates, and cloud-native deployment guides. Rate limiting is solid for typical workloads, but for AI-driven or token-sensitive APIs, more advanced controls—such as token-based throttling—would be highly valuable. Lastly, integration between local setups (like decK) and Kong Konnect could be more seamless, especially for teams adopting GitOps workflows. Addressing these areas would make Kong Gateway even more developer-friendly, scalable, and ready for evolving enterprise needs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong API Gateway resolves issues like API management, controlling traffic, security and monitoring. Kon centralizes the control of API Traffic, carrying it at a root cause level that is guaranteed to scale with advanced security features, such as authentication and rate limits, improving performance via load balancing. This can translate into easier API management, increased reliability, and reduced times in deploying new services, hence a benifit to users.
Engineering Manager
What do you like best about the product?
Stability and ease of use.
It helped us to improve our API experience
It helped us to improve our API experience
What do you dislike about the product?
As such nothing, it is working seamless in our applications
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Authentication and authorisation
Pioneering Product on Track to Become Market Leader
What do you like best about the product?
1. Huge range of plugins which are useful.
2. Low latetency
3. Easy to setup.
4.Easy to use.
5. Easy to integrate with other platform.
2. Low latetency
3. Easy to setup.
4.Easy to use.
5. Easy to integrate with other platform.
What do you dislike about the product?
1. Debveloper portal should be more mature.
2. Kong Documentation should be imroved and more detailed.
2. Kong Documentation should be imroved and more detailed.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong API gateway helps us to manage our APIs by securing, routing and monitoring trafic which helps us to reduce manual overhead which in return helps in enhancing security, provide us with valuable analytics and allows us to focus on our development.
Develop a Product and Pinpoint a Prospective Future Market Leader
What do you like best about the product?
1.provide variety of plugins
2.ease of use and setup
3.low latency
2.ease of use and setup
3.low latency
What do you dislike about the product?
there should be a detailed documentation of kong and the developer portal should be more mature
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong API Gateway streamlines API management by efficiently routing, securing, and monitoring traffic, thereby reducing manual effort. This bolsters security, offers valuable analytics, and enables our team to concentrate on development.
Kong Api review
What do you like best about the product?
This is vey robust and easy to implement.
What do you dislike about the product?
This is very expencive for small level of company.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It generates api in small spam of time.
Market leader as A API Gateway and the Leading API Gateway for Microsevices Management
What do you like best about the product?
1. Currently Dev portal is really mature because of we can customize many of things.
2. Documentation is very improve like step by step guidance for setup the dev portal.
3. We can also integrate the third party IDP server like Okta and auth0 and much more like these.
4. Multi Dev Portal support is obviously now.
5. A plugin, I most like name as Mocking is fantastic, like you can use mock data when your API is under the development.
6. Introduce API tracing on the SaaS platform, Now we don't have to integrate the Dynatrace or other third party service.
7. AI manager is also in the SaaS platform.
8. They improved Observability & Metrics as compare to previous version.
9. AI plugin introduced like ai-proxy, ai-proxy-advanced.
10. Introduce Redis configuration for rate liming plugin.
11. A simple, user-friendly interface that's easy for anyone with basic API management knowledge to use.
2. Documentation is very improve like step by step guidance for setup the dev portal.
3. We can also integrate the third party IDP server like Okta and auth0 and much more like these.
4. Multi Dev Portal support is obviously now.
5. A plugin, I most like name as Mocking is fantastic, like you can use mock data when your API is under the development.
6. Introduce API tracing on the SaaS platform, Now we don't have to integrate the Dynatrace or other third party service.
7. AI manager is also in the SaaS platform.
8. They improved Observability & Metrics as compare to previous version.
9. AI plugin introduced like ai-proxy, ai-proxy-advanced.
10. Introduce Redis configuration for rate liming plugin.
11. A simple, user-friendly interface that's easy for anyone with basic API management knowledge to use.
What do you dislike about the product?
1. I thing they have to work on the pricing of the Kong gateway, price is much higher as compare to other tools in the market like Apigee.
2. They can improve the multi-tenant support in upcoming version.
3. Improve the RBAC for tight security and user permissions.
2. They can improve the multi-tenant support in upcoming version.
3. Improve the RBAC for tight security and user permissions.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
1. Security, Like there is lot of plugins avalible in kong for example. Key auth, open id connect, Jwt and many more.
2. API Management, there is lot of functionality like rate limiting, load balancing, Authorization using ACL plugin and routing.
3. Monitoring and Logging
4. Dev portal for the developers, we can easily publish the api product and expose the service for new developers
2. API Management, there is lot of functionality like rate limiting, load balancing, Authorization using ACL plugin and routing.
3. Monitoring and Logging
4. Dev portal for the developers, we can easily publish the api product and expose the service for new developers
Create Product and potential future market leader
What do you like best about the product?
1. Low Latest
2. Lots of plugins which is useful
3. Ease of use and setup
2. Lots of plugins which is useful
3. Ease of use and setup
What do you dislike about the product?
Kong Documentation needs to be more detailed and their Developer portal needs to be more mature.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It efficiently manages our APIs by routing, securing, and monitoring traffic, reducing manual overhead.
This enhances security, provides valuable analytics, and allows our team to focus on development.
This enhances security, provides valuable analytics, and allows our team to focus on development.
Great tool and Market leader
What do you like best about the product?
In 2025, Kong has releasae lots of new features in Kong Konnect like in AI Gateway it has release Automated RAG Pipelines , PII Sanitization plugins and also enhance Enhanced security and reliability.
Kong also release a debug tracing where we can see the live tracing, which is really good and too fast compare to other APIM.
Kong has also release Kong Event Gateway which is tailored for event-driven architecture which extends Kong's reach beyound synchronous REST.gRPC APIs to tackle streaming and event-based workflow
Kong also release a debug tracing where we can see the live tracing, which is really good and too fast compare to other APIM.
Kong has also release Kong Event Gateway which is tailored for event-driven architecture which extends Kong's reach beyound synchronous REST.gRPC APIs to tackle streaming and event-based workflow
What do you dislike about the product?
I want Kong Gateway to also work as an Identity Provider (IDP) so it can create and manage tokens on its own, instead of depending on third-party platforms like Okta, Auth0, and others.
Kong Gateway Operator 1.5 is powerful, but CRDs can be verbose, and debugging misconfigurations still requires YAML diving.
Kong Gateway Operator 1.5 is powerful, but CRDs can be verbose, and debugging misconfigurations still requires YAML diving.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It centralizes API management, ensuring security, scalability, and streamlined development, while providing analytics for optimization, benefiting developers and businesses alike.
Great Product having Potential of being the Segment Leader
What do you like best about the product?
after my previous response, I can see various plugins such as PII sanitization and Automated RAG injector as welll as trace tool for debugging is also very helpful.
What do you dislike about the product?
Kong is not acting as an IDP server, we are not able to generate tokens from kong itself, we have to use third party IDP servers as okta, oauth 0 etc, so it will be good if we can get this functionality in kong itself, so it can compete with other API gateways like Apigee.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It addresses traffic control, security, and service discovery issues, ensuring efficient API management and high availability. It benefits organizations by providing robust security, scalability, and operational efficiency, enhancing overall API performance and reliability.
Helps manage API usage, monitor anomalies, and detect unusual behavior
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
We use both authorization and header-based methods. Additionally, we connect with our identity provider (IdP) using single sign-on (SSO) and OAuth 2.0. We also enable OpenID Connect.
The traffic control capabilities in Kong Gateway are effective. It helps me manage the usage of each API and monitor any anomalies. I can see any strange behavior or illegal usage from developers, which allows me to notify management about potential issues. Sometimes, it might just be a typo or a bug in the application, but other times, it could be something more serious. The Kong Gateway's traffic control helps detect these anomalies in usage.
What needs improvement?
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.
It's expensive in Thailand (10 million baht, in Thai currency).
One thing I've seen in a competitor's product is the ability to create a simple API within their platform using a low-code/no-code GUI. It connects to databases and allows you to drag and drop to create basic API functions. I think this feature would be a valuable addition to Kong Gateway Enterprise.
So, they should create a single API for the platform.
Moreover, if Kong Gateway Enterprise could integrate AI, that would be great. It could automatically scale itself, assess request rates for each API, or even detect attacks. That would be great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Kong Gateway helped to improve performance. It's good enough for our users.
I would rate the availability an eight out of ten, we experienced some hiccups.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's very easy to scale and create another adapter.
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. We around thousands of end users using it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Kong is my first API gateway.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup had moderate complexity. You have to know a lot of things.
I would rate my experience with the initial setup a five out of ten, with ten being easy.
The Community Edition requires a lot of technical knowledge to implement and use. It's okay for me, but you need to know a lot about Linux, Docker, and networking.
- Deployment time: From scratch, it took about three months.
- Deployment process: The main thing is the configuration and combining it with our existing APIs. Adding them one by one is the most tedious part.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented it. I deploy it in Docker and use it with my team.
What was our ROI?
It helps us mitigate the time to detect problems since we can look up the monitoring system and logs very easily.
It's free for the community edition.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's expensive in Thailand.
As far as I know from one of our vendors, it's about 10 million baht per year.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I'm comparing Kong Gateway Enterprise with other software for potential use in our enterprise. We're looking at management, monitoring, and ease of use.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it because its performance is great. It's reliable.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
showing 31 - 40