# AWS API Gateway vs Kong Gateway

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Kong Gateway

| Attribute | AWS API Gateway | Kong Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 43.5 (41% (low)) | 53.8 (74% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 10 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 1 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 44,260 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A cloud-based API management service that enables developers to build, publish, and maintain APIs with built-in monitoring, traffic control, and security features. Supports RESTful, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs for serverless and containerized workloads. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_pr","question":"What is AWS API Gateway?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"AWS API Gateway offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $1. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/pricing/","question":"Is AWS API Gateway free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to AWS API Gateway. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/pricing/","question":"What platforms does AWS API Gateway support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for AWS API Gateway, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_pr","question":"Can AWS API Gateway be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 14 integrations for AWS API Gateway, including AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon VPC and AWS PrivateLink, plus 6 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_pr","question":"What does AWS API Gateway integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed GDPR for AWS API Gateway. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as AWS API Gateway not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/trust-center/?nc1=f_cc","question":"What security certifications does AWS API Gateway have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"AWS API Gateway is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://aws.amazon.com/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_pr","question":"Where is AWS API Gateway available?","confidence":0.5}]` | `[{"answer":"Kong provides a unified platform for building, testing, and governing APIs and AI agents. It handles both traditional API gateway functions—routing, rate limiting, authentication—and modern AI-specific concerns like token budgeting, context management, and LLM traffic control. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"What is Kong Gateway?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Kong Gateway offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"Is Kong Gateway free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Kong Gateway supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"What platforms does Kong Gateway support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Kong Gateway can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"Can Kong Gateway be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 11 integrations for Kong Gateway, including AWS Bedrock, Azure Content Safety, Google Cloud Model Armor, OpenAI, Anthropic, Llama 3, Kubernetes and Helm, plus 3 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"What does Kong Gateway integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Kong Gateway. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Kong Gateway not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://konghq.com/compliance","question":"What security certifications does Kong Gateway have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Kong Gateway is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/Kong/kong","question":"Is Kong Gateway open source?","confidence":0.95},{"answer":"Kong Gateway is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://konghq.com","question":"Where is Kong Gateway available?","confidence":0.5}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","k8s_native":false,"oauth_oidc":true,"grpc_support":false,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true,"graphql_gateway":false,"developer_portal":true,"request_transformation":true}` | `{"mtls":true,"hosting":"both","k8s_native":true,"oauth_oidc":true,"monetization":true,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true,"developer_portal":true,"plugin_ecosystem":"extensive","request_transformation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 7 | 12 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"AWS Lambda"},{"name":"Amazon CloudFront"},{"name":"Amazon CloudWatch"},{"name":"Amazon DynamoDB"},{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Amazon EC2"},{"name":"Amazon VPC"},{"name":"AWS PrivateLink"},{"name":"AWS Serverless Application Model"},{"name":"AWS IoT"},{"name":"AWS CloudWatch","native":true},{"name":"Amazon Cognito","native":true},{"name":"AWS IAM","native":true},{"name":"AWS CloudFront","native":true},{"name":"Anthropic","native":true,"category":"ai_provider"},{"name":"Meta","native":true,"category":"ai_provider"},{"name":"Mistral AI","native":true,"category":"ai_provider"},{"name":"Amazon","native":true,"category":"ai_provider"},{"name":"SharePoint","native":true,"category":"collaboration","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Confluence","native":true,"category":"collaboration","direction":"inbound"}]` | `[{"name":"AWS Bedrock"},{"name":"Azure Content Safety"},{"name":"Google Cloud Model Armor"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Llama 3"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Helm"},{"name":"Git"},{"name":"Stripe"},{"name":"Twilio"},{"name":"Llama","native":true,"category":"llm","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"DocuSign","native":true,"category":"business_process","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Insomnia","native":true,"category":"api_development","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Apache Kafka","native":true,"category":"event_streaming","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Redis","native":true,"category":"cache","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"Prometheus","native":true,"category":"monitoring","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"cert-manager","native":true,"category":"pki","direction":"outbound"},{"name":"AWS Lambda","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | - | Lua |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US","DE","IE"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":["US","DE","IE","SE","IT","IN","JP","ID","BR"],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Standard","description":"On-demand inference pricing charged per 1 million tokens","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Flex","description":"Flexible tier for foundation model inference","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Priority","description":"Priority tier for accelerated foundation model inference","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Reserved","description":"Reserved capacity tier for foundation model inference","contactSales":false}],"addOns":[{"name":"Batch Inference"},{"name":"Reinforcement Fine-tuning"}],"summary":"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.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_br","retrievedAt":"2026-09-23T14:34:53.348Z","billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source core; Kong Konnect cloud platform offers free trial and commercial subscriptions","sourceUrl":"https://konghq.com","retrievedAt":"2026-10-13T15:14:34.129Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | no |
| release.cadence_days | - | 42 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.4","date":"2026-10-12T07:27:48Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.3","date":"2026-06-17T06:02:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.2","date":"2026-06-04T07:12:53Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.1","date":"2025-06-04T09:20:05Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.0","date":"2024-12-13T04:17:54Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.8.1","date":"2024-11-18T20:52:27Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.8.0","date":"2024-09-11T09:19:15Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/2.8.5","date":"2024-06-24T14:54:52Z","type":"stable","version":"2.8.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.7.1","date":"2024-06-21T09:38:32Z","type":"stable","version":"3.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.7.0","date":"2024-05-28T16:00:45Z","type":"stable","version":"3.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.6.1","date":"2024-03-04T14:19:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.6.0","date":"2024-02-09T22:08:50Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.5.0","date":"2023-11-08T09:50:40Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.2","date":"2023-10-12T10:50:05Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.1","date":"2023-10-03T10:33:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/2.8.4","date":"2023-09-20T23:03:15Z","type":"stable","version":"2.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.0","date":"2023-08-09T15:57:37Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.3.1","date":"2023-07-11T08:58:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.3.0","date":"2023-05-18T17:19:41Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.2.2","date":"2023-03-16T12:24:30Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.2"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.pci | yes | yes |
| security.scorecard | - | 7.5 |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.trust_center | https://aws.amazon.com/security/?nc1=f_cc | https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/trust-what-youre-shipping-with-insomnia-v12 |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2FKong%2Fkong&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (API Gateways)

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

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:18:57.583Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*