# Azure API Management vs Kong Gateway

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Kong Gateway

| Attribute | Azure API Management | Kong Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 42.9 (32% (low)) | 53.8 (74% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 10 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 1 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 44,260 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"An Azure-hosted platform that handles API lifecycle management, governance, and security. It provides centralized oversight and control for APIs across cloud and hybrid environments, supporting traditional services, modern applications, and AI systems. It is indexed under API Gateways.","source":"https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/","question":"What is Azure API Management?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Azure API Management. 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://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/","question":"What platforms does Azure API Management support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Azure API Management, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/","question":"Can Azure API Management be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Azure API Management is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/","question":"Where is Azure API Management 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,"hybrid":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An Azure-hosted platform that handles API lifecycle management, governance, and security. It provides centralized oversight and control for APIs across cloud and hybrid environments, supporting traditional services, modern applications, and AI systems. | 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":"both","observability":true,"pricing_model":"usage-based-saas","rate_limiting":true,"deployment_model":"managed-SaaS","plugin_ecosystem":"extensive"}` | `{"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 | - | 12 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"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":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","summary":"Pay-as-you-go pricing. $200 credit and 30-day trial.","currency":"USD","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/","retrievedAt":"2026-09-06T16:22:55.380Z","freeTrialDays":30}` | `{"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 | no | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | unknown | 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 | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.pci | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | - | 7.5 |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.trust_center | https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/explore/security/ | 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 | Azure API Management | Kong Gateway |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | 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 | Extensive |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Observability | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-15T21:18:19.938Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*