The world’s most adopted
open source API gateway
Loved by developers. Trusted by enterprises.
Lightweight, fast, and flexible cloud native API gateway
Ridiculously fast
Ultra-lightweight, infinitely scalable NGINX engine with 50K+ transactions per second per node.
Always flexible
Kong Gateway delivers the architectural flexibility you need to operate across any cloud, platform, or protocol.
Deployed instantly
Configure Kong Gateway natively using an API, web UI, or declarative configuration to manage updates via CI/CD pipelines.
Why Kong Gateway?
Built for hybrid and multi-cloud, optimized for microservices and distributed architectures.
01/ APIOps
Fully automated
- Automate each phase of the API and microservices lifecycle through declarative configuration.
- Easily apply proven principles of DevOps and GitOps to bring applications online faster.
02/ Installation Options
Deployment agnostic
- Run Kong Gateway in any environment, platform, and implementation pattern — from on-prem to cloud, Kubernetes, and serverless
- Flexibility to configure Kong Gateway with or without database, and in hybrid or cloud-hosted modes.
03/ Plugins
Highly extensible
- Exercise granular control over your API traffic with out-of-the-box security, authentication, transformation, and analytics plugins.
- Easily extend Kong Gateway to support unique use cases with custom plugins via Kong's Plugin Development Kit.
04/ Kubernetes Ingress Controller
Kubernetes native
- Configure Kong Gateway the same way as Kubernetes with Kong Ingress Controller.
- Implement traffic management, transformations, and observability across Kubernetes clusters with zero downtime.
05/ Flexible policy design and execution
Leverage the Gateway for data orchestration and transformation
- Design flexible, granular policy flows
- Drive internal auth, API mashing, and more data transformation use cases
Kong Gateway for every stage
of your API journey
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
Fast, Lightweight, Cloud-Native | |||
End-to-End Automation | |||
Kubernetes Native | |||
Gateway Mocking | |||
Plugin Ordering | |||
Federated API Management | Workspaces provide some isolation | Control planes provide strong isolation | |
Data plane Resilience | |||
Consumer Groups |
API Governance
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
OpenTelemetry | |||
Developer Portal | |||
Service Hub | |||
API Analytics | |||
Data Retention Period for Observability | Up to 1 year | ||
Admin GUI | Self-managed Kong Manager | Self-managed Kong Manager | |
Gateway Event Hooks | |||
Audit Logging |
Operational Efficiency
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
Hosted control plane | self-managed | self-managed | |
Hosted Database | self-managed | self-managed | |
SLA on Gateway control plane and database | self-managed | self-managed | 99.9% Uptime SLA |
Full SaaS API Gateway | |||
Effortless Upgrades |
Traffic Management and Transformations
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic Traffic Control Plugins | |||
Simple Data Transformations | |||
GraphQL | |||
Kafka Integrations | |||
Multi-protocol Plugin Support | |||
Request Validation | |||
Advanced Data Transformation | |||
Advanced Rate Limiting | |||
Routing Engine |
Security and Compliance
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic Authentication | |||
Advanced Authentication | |||
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) | |||
Basic Authorization (Bot Detection, CORS controls, ACLs) | |||
Advanced Authorization (OPA) | |||
OOTB integration with 3rd party secret management tools | |||
FIPS 140-2 Compliant Data Planes | |||
Software Bill of Materials |
Enterprise Support and Services
Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | Kong Gateway | |
|---|---|---|---|
Enterprise support | |||
Customer Success Packages - Add-on |
Kong Gateway propels enterprise success
Kong is a natural fit for PEXA embarking on the modernization journey. It ticks all the boxes — scalability, security, and self-service — which takes the hassle of managing APIs
Simon Vallegra
General Manager of Technology Operations and Digital Delivery
30%
Reduction in costs
With Kong, we’ve taken a big leap forward in our ability to reduce operational overhead while efficiently scaling to support the increase in traffic requests from our rapidly growing customer base.
Neha Jaiswal
Product Manager at Australia Post, API Platform & Central Services
Hours
Developer
onboarding reduced
from days to hours
Mercedes-Benz decided to focus on Kong as their recommended choice because it's suitable for both small and large instances providing simple configuration, operation and monitoring.
Benjamin Bertow
Senior Technical Lead and Product Owner
1,500+
APIs seamlessly
managed
Kong has produced an 85% reduction in gateway overhead compared to our previous proprietary solution, in addition to being 90% more resource efficient.
Ross Sbriscia
Lead Software Engineer at UnitedHealth Group
85%
Reduction
operational overhead