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."The most valuable feature of IBM API Connect is the security of the protocol."
"I have found the API Management to be most valuable."
"API Connect is a good product, and everything works fine. All the analytics are good, and it is easy to follow up. I like it in that sense. I'm more focused on following up on analytics by seeing how many API calls we are getting and where we see a lot of problems. I was working on that API level."
"Using API Connect allows us to quickly create proxy APIs and saves time on end-to-end testing, which lets us deliver quickly to clients."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it protects our backend system. We are exposing services to external parties and using this solution to protect the backend system, and to have a navigation in between."
"API Connect's most valuable feature is its ability to act as a gateway. It's very easy to configure security and everything else in it. You don't have to kill yourself implementing custom configurations."
"The solution provides a common place for all APIs, allowing for easy sharing and exchange of information between internal and external stakeholders."
"API Connect's data gateway is one of the strongest in the market."
"The features I like include ease of operation and implementation in a cloud environment, the dashboarding features for API statistics, and the user-friendly developer portal."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it seamlessly supports a vast number of tools."
"This is a solid intrusion prevention system that combines a firewall and antivirus in a single solution."
"We use the solution for load-balancing, caching, and rate-limiting APIs."
"The solution provides good performance."
"Kong enterprise has significantly enhanced our ability to manage and secure our Microservices. Its most valuable feature is monitoring."
"In our buying companies' perspective, it was easier to use compared to other platforms. The markets were pretty familiar with the solutions."
"We have asked IBM for scalability and for some other features that we wanted. We had a dialogue with them and in the end, they have agreed to provide us with features related to API setup and security."
"The integration of cloud-based services is where we're looking for improvement in this platform."
"I would like to see automation of the installation. If there could be a single-click function where you could automate everything, that would be helpful."
"We would have more capability to interact with the catalog and inventories, so a more DevOps-friendly solution is needed."
"The new version is very unstable."
"The initial setup and installation could be easier."
"There are issues with upgrading in the cloud version. The cloud version is extremely buggy. We prefer to use the on-premise version."
"The documentation needs to be a bit better."
"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."
"It becomes difficult if you try to scale it up to multiple clusters."
"They could focus more on pricing."
"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 are facing issues with the solution's features like reports and traffic analysis."
"Kong Enterprise can improve the customization to be able to do the integration properly."
"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 technical support team's response time needs to be improved."
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 "Offers basic API orchestration and provides robust security and governance features". 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 Layer7 API Management, whereas Kong Gateway Enterprise is most compared with Microsoft Azure API Management, WSO2 API Manager, Apache APISIX, Apigee 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.