We performed a comparison between IBM API Connect and Kong Gateway Enterprise based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two API Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."In-built policies and security functions."
"The most valuable feature is the security we get from this solution. I know of a bank that uses it to ensure that everything is secure. The second feature I like is the retail environment, where we actually want to be able to provide as many suppliers and consumers with APIs as possible. If you are well-trained in the writing of RESTful API's, you can actually publish an API in a matter of minutes, test it, and publish it."
"It is easy to use and stable."
"The centralized management: this provides a management module that can deploy and apply security policies to all APIs, including all the gateways that are deployed on-premises and on any cloud because the gateway component can run at a VMware or in a Kubernetes cluster."
"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"The ability for all of our web applications to share standard functions and documents easily is valuable."
"The services that I consume through IBM API Connect are beneficial. It can handle multiple API management."
"The functionalities on offer are very good."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Good at intercepting traffic and modeling APIs around that."
"The solution provides good performance."
"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 companies and must ensure they adhere to their allocated usage limits. Without rate limiting, there's a risk of excessive usage, which could result in significant costs."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"The initial setup and installation could be easier."
"The solution is not scalable."
"They seem to have left out a feature for microservices and also a certification module for OIDC."
"I would like to see support for non-Java based services. We struggle a bit to be able to deploy and connect our .NET services because of things like data types. We had to map a couple of things. For one solution provider, we had to move them to .NET Core before we could use it properly. I would like to see more agnostic tool service platforms rather than moving it more towards Java or open source."
"Our main pain points are in these two areas: creating a better developer portal and improving stability in terms of synchronization and monetization."
"API Connect's analytics subsystem could be improved to make it easier to render content from the analytics system and offload it to an external database."
"It is expensive within this class of products."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"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 developer portal needs to be improved."
"The solution should include policy features that are available in other solutions like MuleSoft API manager but missing in Kong Enterprise."
"Understanding the configurations and knowing what needs to be done can be a bit difficult initially."
"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."
"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."
"They could focus more on pricing."
IBM API Connect is ranked 5th in API Management with 73 reviews while Kong Gateway Enterprise is ranked 6th in API Management with 20 reviews. IBM API Connect is rated 8.0, while Kong Gateway Enterprise is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of IBM API Connect writes "Good speed and performance, but it's based on a bit dated architecture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Kong Gateway Enterprise writes "Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script". IBM API Connect is most compared with IBM DataPower Gateway, Apigee, Microsoft Azure API Management, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager and 3scale API Management, whereas Kong Gateway Enterprise is most compared with Microsoft Azure API Management, WSO2 API Manager, Apigee, Apache APISIX and IBM DataPower Gateway. See our IBM API Connect vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise report.
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We monitor all API Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
