We compared Microsoft Azure API Management and Kong Enterprise based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Microsoft Azure API Management stands out for its customer service and variety of pricing options, providing flexibility and value for money. Meanwhile, Kong Enterprise excels in API management capabilities and advanced security features, with praised scalability and reliability. Users highlight the need for improvements in Azure's user interface and Kong's scaling capabilities.
Features: Microsoft Azure API Management is valued for its user-friendly interface, seamless integration, and excellent security measures. On the other hand, Kong Enterprise is praised for its exceptional API management capabilities, advanced security features, and comprehensive documentation.
Pricing and ROI: When comparing the setup cost of Microsoft Azure API Management and Kong Enterprise, user feedback shows that Azure API Management offers reasonable setup costs with a streamlined onboarding process. On the other hand, Kong Enterprise users have provided insights into the costs and ease of setup but no specific information on the setup cost itself., Microsoft Azure API Management has been praised for its positive ROI, with increased efficiency, scalability, cost savings, and improved API performance. Kong Enterprise also delivers favorable ROI, enhancing business outcomes, revenue growth, efficiency, scalability, cost savings, and customer experiences.
Room for Improvement: The Microsoft Azure API Management product could benefit from improvements in user experience, documentation, support, and performance. In contrast, Kong Enterprise could enhance its scaling capabilities, user interface, documentation, error handling, and performance optimization.
Deployment and customer support: The reviews of Microsoft Azure API Management indicate varying durations for deployment and setup, ranging from one week to three months. In contrast, the reviews for Kong Enterprise also show varied durations, with some users taking a week for deployment and setup, while others taking three months. The context in which these terms are used needs to be carefully evaluated for accurate evaluation., Microsoft Azure API Management has received positive feedback for its exceptional customer service, praised for its prompt and effective assistance. Users appreciate the knowledgeable and friendly support team. Kong Enterprise's customer service is highly praised too, with prompt and effective assistance and a friendly and knowledgeable support team.
The summary above is based on 50 interviews we conducted recently with Microsoft Azure API Management and Kong Enterprise users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"I like everything about it. It provides the security we need."
"Protocol transformation is the most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise."
"The most valuable feature of Kong Enterprise is its capability to integrate with various security tools."
"Kong Enterprise has excellent plugin support."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Kong Enterprise are the out-of-the-box open source easy functionality."
"It is easy to use."
"Without a doubt, it has a very robust, strong marketplace where we can directly integrate with existing APIs and begin working on those."
"The stability and performance are good. It is easy to install, and it scales well too."
"API Management does not take long to deploy."
"It's easier to use and has more features than Google."
"The API management and the hosting of the API platform are great."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its importing and publishing."
"Allows the possibility of VPN technology to connect your gateway directly with on-prem services"
"The developer portal needs to be improved."
"We are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"The tool needs improvement in UX."
"Kong Enterprise has decided not to support the web portal feature anymore, but I think that feature should stay in the on-premises solution."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"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."
"The ease of billing is lost when Kong is not available directly on the Azure marketplace. This is one area where they can improve."
"They could focus more on pricing."
"The implementation has room for improvement and can be more user-friendly."
"API Management's price could be lower."
"The external policies are impossible to look at and configure."
"Microsoft Azure API Management could improve the documentation. The documentation feels like marketing information and not sufficient technical information. Your easiest option is to purchase services from a Microsoft partner and this is their marketing."
"I'd like to have better flexibility and more capabilities."
"Support for GraphQL could be better."
"I would like to see more security features become available."
"The licensing tiers can be misleading."
More Microsoft Azure API Management Pricing and Cost Advice →
Kong Gateway Enterprise is ranked 6th in API Management with 19 reviews while Microsoft Azure API Management is ranked 1st in API Management with 68 reviews. Kong Gateway Enterprise is rated 7.8, while Microsoft Azure API Management is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Kong Gateway Enterprise writes "Provides role-based access control and can be easily customized with Lua script". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure API Management writes "Efficiently manages and monetizes API ". Kong Gateway Enterprise is most compared with WSO2 API Manager, Apigee, Apache APISIX, Layer7 API Management and MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, whereas Microsoft Azure API Management is most compared with Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint API Manager, IBM API Connect and WSO2 API Manager. See our Kong Gateway Enterprise vs. Microsoft Azure API Management 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.