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Reliable API Gateway with Strong Flexibility
What do you like best about the product?
What stands out most is the flexibility and control it gives us over our API traffic. The plugin-based architecture has been especially useful: we can apply authentication, rate limiting, and logging in a consistent way without having to build everything ourselves. It also integrates smoothly into our existing stack and supports both cloud and on-prem setups, which matters for us given our regulatory and data constraints. Performance has been solid under load as well, and that reliability is critical for our use cases.
What do you dislike about the product?
The biggest challenge for me is the initial setup and the ongoing maintenance. It isn’t always straightforward, especially for teams that aren’t deeply familiar with API gateway concepts. When configuration issues come up, debugging can take a while, and although the documentation is extensive, it can feel a bit fragmented when you’re working through more advanced scenarios. I also get the sense that some enterprise features are more necessary than optional, which can affect cost considerations.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong has helped us centralise API management and apply consistent security policies across our services. Before we started using it, many of these controls were implemented separately within each service, which led to duplication and inconsistent behaviour. Now we rely on a single layer for authentication, routing, and monitoring, which lowers risk and makes governance much simpler.
Empowers API Management with Ease, Despite Initial Setup Hurdles
What do you like best about the product?
I like that Kong Gateway is a very useful tool for building secure and scalable applications. It helps me organize, secure, and manage all my APIs easily in one place. What I liked is that many features, like security and rate limiting, can be added easily without much coding. I like how it makes managing and securing APIs simple and organized. I enjoy its speed and how smoothly it integrates with my work.
What do you dislike about the product?
Initial setup can be tricky and debugging could be simpler. Debugging is sometimes hard because errors aren't clear. Clearer error messages or a visual dashboard could make it easier.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong Gateway helps securely manage and organize all my APIs efficiently, handling traffic smoothly. It simplifies adding features like security and rate limiting without much coding and integrates well with my workflow.
Robust API Governance and Identity Controls with Kong Gateway
What do you like best about the product?
Kong Gateway provides a robust set of API rules, policies, governance, and identity controls for proper shielding and protection of assets.
What do you dislike about the product?
The Kong Gateway does so many things, and the options are numerous that being focused on particular use cases with specific configuration can be daunting.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Main problem Kong Gateway is solving is a shielding aspect for core software programs and keeping misbehaving systems from interfering with functional activities.
Future-Ready Kong: Thoughtful Features, Flexible Automation, and Great Support
What do you like best about the product?
I started working with Kong about six months ago as a beginner. What I appreciate most about Kong is that the features they release are well thought‑out and come ready for use. Most capabilities can be easily performed through the UI, CLI, or Admin API, which makes automation straightforward and flexible. Kong also supports a wide range of architectures, from legacy setups to modern, cloud‑native designs. Their development process is strong, user feedback is actively considered, enhancements are delivered quickly, and the overall support experience has been very good. This has made learning and working with the platform much easier and more effective.
The introduction of AI Gateway capabilities further positions Kong ahead of the market, making it a future‑ready platform.
The introduction of AI Gateway capabilities further positions Kong ahead of the market, making it a future‑ready platform.
What do you dislike about the product?
One area where I see room for improvement is that some capabilities which were previously available—and are still relevant and commonly expected in the API gateway space—have been deprecated or are no longer supported. For example, earlier versions allowed API products to be created with the same name, which enabled a single‑organization model while differentiating environments such as Production and Non‑Production, and publishing them to their respective developer portals.
With the v3 Developer Portal, this is no longer supported, as API products must have globally unique names. This results in a less optimal user experience or requires maintaining separate organizations for Production and Non‑Production, which in turn increases operational and maintenance overhead. It would be valuable to revisit this capability to better support common enterprise environment‑segregation use cases.
With the v3 Developer Portal, this is no longer supported, as API products must have globally unique names. This results in a less optimal user experience or requires maintaining separate organizations for Production and Non‑Production, which in turn increases operational and maintenance overhead. It would be valuable to revisit this capability to better support common enterprise environment‑segregation use cases.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Based on my experience with Kong, one feature I particularly appreciate is the ability to assign approvers to individual APIs as part of the self‑service journey, without requiring any external approval workflow. This was something we struggled to implement in our previous developer portal. Additionally, Kong makes it very easy to integrate with observability and monitoring tools such as OpenTelemetry and Splunk, enabling seamless visibility into API behavior and performance.
Go-To Multicloud API Gateway with Highly Scalable Performance
What do you like best about the product?
One of the goto solutions for all your API gateway needs in multicloud environments providing highly scalable solutions.
What do you dislike about the product?
Dealing with Enterprise restrictions, plugins management & a few performance challenges
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Open source API gateway platform delivering all your organisation needs
Robust API Management with Impressive Performance and Scalability
What do you like best about the product?
I’m glad to see that this is a robust and well-established choice for API management. Its impressive performance and scalability make it highly efficient, and I particularly value the plugin architecture, which makes it simple to add new features.
What do you dislike about the product?
One persistent issue is that error messages from the proxy or plugin layer are often not sufficiently explicit. This lack of clarity can make it more challenging to debug and determine the underlying cause of a configuration failure.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Since adopting this platform, we have experienced considerable time savings in both the development and maintenance of our individual applications. Furthermore, it enables us to innovate new features quickly and supports a higher degree of customization.
Flexible, Scalable, and Effortless API Management
What do you like best about the product?
I like that Kong Gateway is incredibly flexible and scales really well, it just handles massive amounts of API traffic without breaking a sweat. The plugin system is a huge plus for me, since it lets me add features like authentication, rate limiting, or monitoring without doing a lot of extra work, and I’ve found the hybrid deployment options super handy when bridging older systems with new cloud apps.
What do you dislike about the product?
What I dislike is that getting started can be rough, especially if you’re new to API gateways; the documentation sometimes leaves you hanging and figuring things out can be frustrating. I also wish more advanced features were available in the open source version, since some really useful stuff is locked behind the enterprise paywall, and the developer portal feels a bit undercooked compared to others I’ve tried
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong Gateway is solving the challenge of securely and efficiently managing APIs in a microservices architecture. It helps by centralizing API authentication and authorization, making sure only the right users can access my services, and it protects APIs from abuse through rate limiting and other security tools. With built-in logging, monitoring, and plugin support, it simplifies both managing traffic and troubleshooting issues, all from a single platform.
Great API Gateway but can get better with more Open Sourced community
What do you like best about the product?
Kuma API Gateway by Kong is the most impressive product related to domain im active rn
What do you dislike about the product?
Lesser Open Source practise and lesser istio integration pulls it from an efficient egress solution.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Its been great for solving up the west east traffic and is a lot efficient from nginx and other gateway solutions but still it needs to be more aligned to istio
New Tool Intro Level for Better Internal ROI
What do you like best about the product?
Has many hybrid API flexible features. Plugin based abilities. Similarities to Kubernates and Boomi as tool.
What do you dislike about the product?
Features require testibg and use real-time for best understanding
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Tougher API challenges for gaps in enablemwnt.
API First Capability for Enterprise Solutions
What do you like best about the product?
Provides scalability and performance with proper requests volume matching. Deployment architecture meets SLA nd RPO-RTO requirements so far. Provides RBACs for security and runtime and management planes can be completely deployed on-prem. Provides monitoring and logging capabilities along with Kubernetes & Container based deployment.
What do you dislike about the product?
Nothing at the moment. Meets our requirement
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Hybrid deployment model, built in analytics, shared policies, ease of migration of legacy API infra.
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