Kong Named Across Eight Categories in 2025 Gartner Hype Cycle Reports

Powering Innovation, Productivity, and Growth

Third-party recognition is always a significant milestone, but being included across multiple categories by a leading research firm like Gartner? That's definitely worth celebrating. Kong has been featured in eight different categories across six Gartner hype cycles for 2025*— our most comprehensive inclusion to date. 

This recognition spans the entire gamut of API platform capabilities: from API observability to vertical-specific healthcare solutions. We believe that this wide-spanning acknowledgement propels Kong's position as the API platform that helps organizations innovate faster, reduce costs, enhance developer productivity, and strengthen security posture.

Background: Why this recognition matters for your business

Gartner's annual hype cycles are the gold standard for understanding where technologies are in their maturity journey. They help organizations separate the genuinely transformative innovations from the flash-in-the-pan trends that'll be forgotten by next quarter.

For Kong, this widespread recognition validates what we've been building: not just an API gateway, but a comprehensive unified API platform that directly addresses the four key value drivers our customers prioritize most.

Kong across the hype cycles: Enabling your innovation agenda

Here's where Kong earned sample vendor recognition and how each capability drives real business value:

Innovate faster with AI-forward capabilities

• API consumption by generative AI: Kong isn't just keeping up with the AI revolution — we're helping you lead it. From managing LLM traffic patterns to controlling AI costs while maintaining security, Kong ensures your AI investments translate into business value, not just proof-of-concepts.

Enhance developer productivity and experience

• Lightweight API Gateways and Service Mesh: Your developers need the right tools without the overhead. Kong's lightweight API gateway lets development teams focus on their applications’ business logic, while our service mesh provides microservices management without the typical complexity.
• API management for healthcare: In regulated industries like healthcare, Kong enables secure FHIR API management that doesn't slow down innovation — helping developers build compliant solutions faster.

Reduce costs through platform consolidation

• Federated API gateways: Instead of managing disparate gateway solutions, Kong provides unified management across diverse environments. One platform, multiple deployment models, consistent governance — reducing both tooling costs and operational overhead.
• gRPC APIs: High-performance, low-latency communications that do more with less infrastructure, supporting your cost optimization goals while improving user experience.

Strengthen security posture at scale

• API observability and monitoring: You can't protect what you can't see. Kong's comprehensive observability ensures every API across your organization is visible, monitored, and secured, turning your API landscape from a security risk into a competitive advantage.

The platform advantage: End-to-end API management in one solution

This recognition reinforces something unique about Kong: we're the only vendor that can address your entire API landscape. While competitors might excel in one area or another, Kong provides the Swiss Army Knife of API platforms, helping you with all of the following. 

• Core API management for your existing services
• AI gateway capabilities for your innovation initiatives
• Event-driven architecture support for real-time applications
• Service mesh functionality for microservices communication
• Lightweight deployment options for developer autonomy

The result? Faster time-to-market, lower total cost of ownership, and a security posture that enables rather than inhibits innovation.

What this means for your modern API strategy

Whether you're a platform team building internal developer experiences, a security leader ensuring compliance across diverse environments, or an executive driving AI initiatives, these recognitions validate that Kong can be the single unified API platform for all API challenges.

Ready to transform your API strategy?

Want to see how Kong's comprehensive unified API platform can accelerate your innovation while reducing costs and strengthening security? Request a demo and let's discuss how these capabilities address your specific business objectives.

Already using Kong and want to explore new capabilities? Check out our latest documentation to see what's possible with your current setup.

*Hype Cycle for Healthcare Providers, 2025 (June, 2025); Hype Cycle for Platform Engineering, 2025 (June, 2025); Hype Cycle for Health System Engineering, 2025 (June, 2025); Hype Cycle for U.S. Healthcare Payers, 2025 (June, 2025); Hype Cycle for Cloud Platform Services, 2025 (June, 2025); Hype Cycle for API, 2025 (July, 2025); Hype Cycle for Monitoring and Evaluation, 2025 (July, 2025); Hype Cycle for Application Architecture and Integration, 2025 (August, 2025)