Kong Gateway
A platform for managing and securing API and AI traffic across cloud-native infrastructure
- Vendor
- Kong Inc.
- Also known as
- kong-gateway
Available worldwide · Popular in: US
What is Kong Gateway?
Kong Gateway is an API and AI traffic management platform that centralizes governance, routing, security, and analytics. It supports traditional APIs, LLMs, MCPs, and event streams with deployment options ranging from cloud-hosted SaaS to self-managed Kubernetes or bare metal.
Kong Gateway pricing
We don't have Kong Gateway's full plan breakdown yet (its pricing page resisted automated reading). Here's what we could confirm. Always check live pricing for exact numbers.
Open source with commercial subscriptions available. Kong Konnect offers a free tier with cloud hosting.
What Kong Gateway does
The capabilities that matter for api gateways, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Hosting
- Cloud + self-hosted
- Kubernetes-native
- ✓
- Rate limiting
- ✓
- Request/response transformation
- ✓
- OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT
- ✓
- Mutual TLS
- ✓
- GraphQL gateway
- -
- gRPC support
- -
- Developer portal
- ✓
- Monetization
- ✓
- Plugin ecosystem
- Extensive
- Observability
- ✓
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Web
- Linux
- Cloud / SaaS
- Hybrid
- On-premise
- Self-hosted
Integrations (18)
Independently observed- Llama→•
- DocuSign→•
- Insomnia⇄•
- Apache Kafka⇄•
- Redis→•
- Prometheus→•
- cert-manager→•
- AWS Bedrock
- Azure Content Safety
- Google Cloud Model Armor
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Llama 3
- Kubernetes
- Helm
- Git
- Stripe
- Twilio
Security & compliance
Known vulnerabilities: 0 (0 in the last 12 months) sourcea count reflects scale & disclosure, not quality
Kong Gateway FAQ
Common questions about Kong Gateway, answered from independent, dated evidence.
What is Kong Gateway?
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
Is Kong Gateway free?
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
What platforms does Kong Gateway support?
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
Can Kong Gateway be self-hosted?
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
What does Kong Gateway integrate with?
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
What security certifications does Kong Gateway have?
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
Is Kong Gateway open source?
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
Where is Kong Gateway available?
Kong Gateway is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.
Source: https://konghq.com
Kong Gateway alternatives
Other api gateways we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- WSO2 API ManagerOpen-source API management platform for enterpriseslow · 24%
- Zuplomedium · 70%
- TraefikA cloud-native gateway and reverse proxy platform for routing microservices, containers, and APIs across hybrid environmentslow · 44%
- Apache APISIXOpen-source traffic management for APIs and AI servicesmedium · 54%
- TykA cloud-native API gateway for routing and securing REST, GraphQL, TCP, and gRPC traffichigh · 76%
- Envoy GatewayControl and optimize your API and application traffic with an Envoy-based gatewaymedium · 54%
Compare Kong Gateway
Side by side against other api gateways, attribute by attribute, with a source on every value.
The vioscaleAI score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Kong Gateway, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security posture | 65 | 0.12 | 7.5 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 92 | 0.06 | 5.8 | ✓ |
| Release cadence | 84 | 0.05 | 4.4 | ✓ |
| Security score | 70 | 0.04 | 2.9 | ✓ |
| Stars | 88 | 0.03 | 2.3 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 32 | 0.07 | 2.3 | ✓ |
| Development activity | 10 | 0.09 | 0.9 | ✓ |
| Dependent projects | 5 | 0.06 | 0.3 | ✓ |
| Package downloads | 0 | 0.14 | 0.0 | - |
| Developer Q&A activity | 0 | 0.06 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 1 | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 65% |
Adoption
Content
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Faq | 8 items | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 64% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | Mtls: Yes · Hosting: both · K8s native: Yes · Oauth oidc: Yes · Monetization: Yes · Observability: Yes | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 12 | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Lua | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 95% |
Market
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | PrimaryMarkets: … · AvailabilityScope: global · AvailableCountries: … · NotAvailableCountries: … | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 75% |
Pricing
Release
Reliability
Security
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Disclosure policy | Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60% |
| Gdpr | Yes | highsource · 2026-08-14 · 75% |
| Pci | Yes | highsource · 2026-08-05 · 75% |
| Soc2 | Yes | highsource · 2026-08-05 · 75% |
| Scorecard | 7 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
| 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 | highsource · 2026-09-10 · 90% |
| Trust center | https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/trust-what-youre-shipping-with-insomnia-v12 | mediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 60% |
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