In the rapidly evolving world of API management, the conversation around "the great unbundling of API management" has recently gained traction. This movement, highlighted by industry experts and analysts, including a recent Forbes article, reflects a shift towards a more componentized approach in API tooling offerings. Such an approach caters to the enterprise's specific needs, moving away from the traditional "does-it-all" solutions.
At Kong, we’re not just observers of this trend; we’re active participants and innovators, aligning our platform's philosophy with the needs of a changing landscape through what we call the "incremental buy-in" approach.
The concept of unbundling in API management points to the fragmentation of API lifecycle management into distinct, specialized tools and components. This trend stems from the need for flexibility and customization as enterprises look to address their unique challenges with tailored solutions that are each best designed to address the specific area of the API lifecycle at hand.
Kong’s incremental buy-in product principle is designed to empower organizations to start with what they need and expand their toolset organically as their requirements evolve. This approach isn’t about offering a one-size-fits-all solution but providing a suite of best-in-class capabilities that cater to different aspects of the API lifecycle and its stakeholders, including application teams, infrastructure teams, platform teams, and API product owners.
Kong’s platform comprises:
Each of these products is designed to address specific needs of the API lifecycle management and provide the best possible experience for that specific need — it’s tailored for that specific aspect of the API lifecycle management.
As an example, one can start by introducing a K8s native API gateway for internal ingress traffic management to Kubernetes clusters leveraging the Kong Ingress Controller, and then, when ready or the need arises, introduce Kong Mesh for service-to-service traffic management and security. The solution can then, at a later time, be extended with Edge traffic management via the Kong Gateway, and last but not least, an organizational-wide rollout through a Platform Team enabled via Kong Konnect.
With the incremental buy-in philosophy, we’re designing each of these products to be independently adoptable, based on the use case at hand, without the necessity to commit to the entire suite from the outset. This enables a truly incremental approach, allowing organizations to grow into our ecosystem as their needs dictate.
The benefits of the incremental buy-in philosophy are multifold:
Kong's partnership with Rabobank, a premier international financial services provider, epitomizes the essence of our incremental buy-in philosophy. This collaboration highlights how our platform's adaptability and modularity enable organizations like Rabobank to customize their API management ecosystems to meet evolving needs.
During a recent fireside chat at Kong’s API Summit, the Rabobank API platform team shared their journey of adopting Kong's Konnect platform as a foundation for their API platform development.
It began with the integration of Kong Gateway, laying a solid foundation for API traffic management and security. As their requirements grew, Rabobank further embraced Kong Konnect for its federated governance capabilities, empowering their platform team to construct a comprehensive API platform. This platform was enriched with Rabobank’s own ecosystem of capabilities around API Portals, API Analytics, and more as depicted by the diagram below.
Rabobank’s “constellation” of components forming their new API platform
Rabobank’s approach illustrates the incremental buy-in model's strength, enabling them to begin with core Kong offerings and progressively integrate more components and external tools. This strategy not only aligns with their specific operational needs but also exemplifies how organizations can fluidly adapt to the "great unbundling" of API management.
The trend towards the unbundling of API management reflects the industry's move towards more agile, flexible, and customized solutions. At Kong, our incremental buy-in philosophy embodies this shift, providing a pathway for organizations to adopt and grow their API management capabilities in a way that aligns with their unique needs and pace. As we navigate the evolving API landscape, Kong remains committed to empowering our customers with the tools and flexibility they need to succeed in an increasingly interconnected world.
By embracing the principles of incremental buy-in, Kong not only acknowledges the trend of API management unbundling but also leads the way in providing adaptable, scalable, and efficient solutions for the modern enterprise.
To get started with Kong's portfolio of products (using incremental buy-in, of course) try Kong Konnect for free.
How to empower engineers and increase velocity without shadow IT with fast and secure API infrastructure strategy We want our engineering teams to move fast and be agile, yet many organizations confuse ownership of the infrastructure with ownership
As API adoption continues, early autonomy incentives often have led to shadow IT and infrastructure sprawl. To secure our growing API attack surface, technology leaders must implement organizational accountability through security oversight, platfor
The challenges of an acquisition frequently appear in a number of critical areas, especially when dealing with a platform as important as Kafka: API Instability and Change : Merged entities frequently rationalize or re-architect their services, whic
Everyone's telling you to innovate faster with AI. Move quicker. Ship more features. Deploy more agents. But before we sprint headlong into the AI revolution, we need to have a proper dollars-and-cents conversation that most companies are avoiding.
Introduction: It’s a great report for us here at Kong, and it further validates the changes happening in the larger market The 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for API Management report was a great one for us here at Kong. We continue to move “up and to
The challenge: A disconnected world Consider the typical enterprise architecture in a relatively mature organization, an API management layer defines and deploys services to an API gateway, an Identity Provider (IDP) manages human user identities, a