Comparison

AWS API Gateway vs Kong Gateway

On the evidence we track, Kong Gateway leads this comparison with a composite score of 54/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
AWS API Gateway44
★Kong Gateway54
Score
vioscaleAI score
AWS API Gateway44 / 100low · 41%
Kong Gateway54 / 100medium · 74%
Pricing
Free tier
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Model
AWS API Gatewayfreemium
Kong Gatewayopen_source
Price level
AWS API Gatewaylow
Kong Gatewayfree
Transparent
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✗
Integrations
Count
AWS API Gateway7
Kong Gateway12
Security
Disclosure policy
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Fedramp
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway–
Gdpr
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Pci
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Scorecard
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway7.5
Soc2
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway✓
Reliability
Sla pct
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway99.99
Status page
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway1
Github stars
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway44,260
Activity
Commits last 30d
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway10
Release
Cadence days
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway42
History
AWS API Gateway–
Kong Gateway20 items
License
Spdx
AWS API Gateway–
Kong GatewayApache-2.0
Language
Primary
AWS API Gateway–
Kong GatewayLua
Content
Faq
AWS API Gateway7 items
Kong Gateway8 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for api gateways. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Hosting
AWS API GatewayCloud only
Kong GatewayCloud + self-hosted
Kubernetes-native
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✓
Traffic
Rate limiting
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Request/response transformation
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Security
OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Mutual TLS
AWS API Gateway-
Kong Gateway✓
Protocols
GraphQL gateway
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway-
gRPC support
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway-
Delivery
Developer portal
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Monetization
AWS API Gateway-
Kong Gateway✓
Ecosystem
Plugin ecosystem
AWS API Gateway-
Kong GatewayExtensive
Insight
Observability
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

AWS API Gateway

AWS Bedrock provides organizations with managed access to foundation models from leading AI providers, supporting on-demand inference, batch processing at discounted rates, model fine-tuning, and integrated knowledge base capabilities for building AI applications.

Independently observed

Kong Gateway

Leader

Kong Gateway is a scalable API and LLM gateway platform designed for cloud-native deployments. It provides traffic management, authentication, rate limiting, request transformation, and advanced AI capabilities.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

AWS API Gateway

Usage-basedFree tier

Token-based usage pricing with Standard, Flex, Priority, and Reserved tiers. Batch inference 50% cheaper. Knowledge Base includes free tier components. Custom pricing available on request.

  • Standard-
  • Flex-
  • Priority-
  • Reserved-
as of verify ↗

Kong Gateway

Leader
Open source

Open source core; Kong Konnect cloud platform offers free trial and commercial subscriptions

as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Linux
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✓
CLI
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
AWS API Gateway✓
Kong Gateway✓
Self-hosted
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✓
Hybrid
AWS API Gateway✗
Kong Gateway✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (2)
  • AWS Lambda
  • Anthropic

AWS API Gateway

20 total - 18 not shared
  • Amazon CloudFront
  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • Amazon DynamoDB
  • Amazon S3
  • Amazon EC2
  • Amazon VPC
  • AWS PrivateLink
  • AWS Serverless Application Model
  • AWS IoT
  • AWS CloudWatch
  • Amazon Cognito
  • AWS IAM
  • AWS CloudFront
  • Meta
  • Mistral AI
  • Amazon
  • SharePoint
  • Confluence
Independently observed

Kong Gateway

Leader
19 total - 17 not shared
  • AWS Bedrock
  • Azure Content Safety
  • Google Cloud Model Armor
  • OpenAI
  • Llama 3
  • Kubernetes
  • Helm
  • Git
  • Stripe
  • Twilio
  • Llama
  • DocuSign
  • Insomnia
  • Apache Kafka
  • Redis
  • Prometheus
  • cert-manager
Independently observed
Still deciding?

AWS API Gateway or Kong Gateway: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.