IBM API Connect vs Kong Gateway Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM API Connect
Ranking in API Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (7th)
Kong Gateway Enterprise
Ranking in API Management
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the API Management category, the market share of IBM API Connect is 7.1% and it increased by 6.8% compared to the previous year. The market share of Kong Gateway Enterprise is 4.9% and it decreased by 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Management
Unique Categories:
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
2.4%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

Shanmugasundaram Shanmuganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 15, 2024
Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features
While Azure API Management offers configurable scalability, IBM API Connect relies on Kubernetes clusters. This might seem manual and require defining cluster instances upfront, but it's completely customizable and not on-the-fly scaling. It's completely custom-driven, not on-the-fly scaling, which some may consider cumbersome. Overall, I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost all applications we've been exposing lately go through this middleware, so it's used extensively. There are around sixty applications directly using it, but six Kubernetes clusters serve those applications. It's heavily used for integration, including system-to-system integration and product integrations. Our usage has been increasing year-on-year based on our needs.
AmitKanodia - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 2, 2022
Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script
I lead the integration practices in my organization and have been working in integration for the past 16 years, managing API integrations with various API manager tools such as Kong Enterprise. We are primarily using Kong for the API gateway functionality. For example, we've had a couple of mobile…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found IBM API Connect to be highly secure, efficient, easy to deploy, and has a great GUI. It can operate and integrate well with other vendors, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft."
"DataPower Gateway holds significant value for us as it serves as the cornerstone of our enterprise security controls."
"The solution is very scalable because it's on the cloud."
"IBM API Connect is a reliable and scalable solution."
"Our version supports containerized integration. I can write APIs, which can be moved into a testing environment without needing a forklift. It can check if APIs are compliant before moving them into production."
"It acts as a central gateway for both external APIs and underlying systems. It's basically a central middleware for hosting APIs to the internet and consuming APIs from internal systems. It provides central governance for any APIs going outside the network, ensuring security and a common contract for API definitions."
"Easy to configure security and generate API keys."
"The solution provides a common place for all APIs, allowing for easy sharing and exchange of information between internal and external stakeholders."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"The solution provides good performance."
"The solution's technical support is good and fast in terms of responsiveness and problem-solving skills."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"Kong Enterprise comes with some ready plug-ins, which is very good for the customers."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have a SaaS solution that can be deployed into the cloud."
"Debugging could be improved."
"Like any typical IBM infrastructure setup, you need to learn to set it up yourself. It's not one of those simple zip files or an archive unzip and you're up and running in some few minutes. Knowledge to set it up is key."
"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."
"The developer portal could be easier to customize."
"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"Extracting the data could be improved."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"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."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"We would like to see an automatic data API when we have a table in the database."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for IBM API Connect varies, e.g. it could be subscription-based. Deploying it on private cloud also means you have to own most of the software licensing."
"The pricing is too expensive with IBM. Sometimes, we prefer to go with an open source or something more lightweight."
"It would be a good idea to bring down the pricing by at least 20 to 30 percent."
"The price of the solution is very expensive, it can turn many customers away."
"It can be quite expensive. It's okay for large-scale usage but quite expensive for smaller-scale implementations."
"It is an expensive solution. The licensing model is based on a per-subscription and per-subscriber end-user basis, meaning the price is determined by the end-users of the platform."
"API Connect's license cost could be a little lower. But, unfortunately, there aren't many open-source API gateways. Ideally, some new developers could come up with a minimum-functionality open-source solution."
"API Connect is expensive - I'd rate their pricing five out of ten."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing charges...In some areas, the functionalities are available free of charge."
"The licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is reasonable for our company size."
"Kong Enterprise's pricing is at par compared to the other technologies."
"I don't have any information on licensing costs currently."
"Kong Enterprise is cheaper than Apigee. I rate its pricing as four out of ten."
"There are many factors that influence the price of Kong Enterprise, such as scale, licenses, and usage."
"The price is really reasonable compared to that of alternative solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM API Connect?
Publishers can easily identify, create, and publish APIs on the developer portal, defining plans, packages, and potentially billing rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM API Connect?
I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price.
What needs improvement with IBM API Connect?
The platform’s integration with the payment gateway needs enhancement. The setup process and support services could be improved.
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 ease of integration offered by the tool is strong. The security is being built in the tool. In terms of the connectivity part of the tool, I haven't had a chance to comment on the challenges si...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heineken, Tine, Finologee, Axis Bank
Cargill, Zillow, Ferrari, WeWork, Healthcare.gov, Yahoo! Japan, Giphy, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM API Connect vs. Kong Gateway Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: June 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.