Have worked across industries to streamline API lifecycle and integration with strong support experience
What is our primary use case?
I have experience with both Apigee and Kong API Gateway. I have migrated from Apigee to Kong Konnect for organizations.
I am working currently with Kong Konnect SaaS Enterprise, which is the SaaS version of Kong. I have also worked on Kong Gateway Enterprise.
With Kong Konnect, AWS is the provider by default. However, the gateway runtime can be installed anywhere, the Kong Gatewa runtime also called the Kong Data Plane is platform agnostic. It does not have to be in AWS. It can be in Azure or on-prem as well.
What is most valuable?
Kong has been working on their documentation. They have developed a separate portal for the documentation. They are trying to improve that.
Their tech support is excellent. When I raise an incident or a support ticket, it got answered in four hours.
What needs improvement?
When comparing documentation, Kong's documentation is not on par with Google, Amazon, or other cloud providers. If a new person joins a team and wants to start using Kong's product and their associated tools, they would find it difficult initially compared to Google, Amazon, or Microsoft products, or even Azure from the deployment perspective. Kong has been working on their documentation and has developed a separate portal for the documentation. They are trying to improve that area.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using both Kong Konnect and Kong Gateway Enterprise for three years at the level of API Technical Architect.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Kong Konnect includes managed and self-hosted runtimes, allowing different business units to independently control their gateways while maintaining central governance, security, and logging policies.
How are customer service and support?
Their tech support is excellent. When I raise an incident or a support ticket, it gets answered in four hours.
How would you rate customer service and support?
What about the implementation team?
One thing to keep in mind is Kong Konnect has professional services which often gets involved in the initial phases of implementation. Their professional services are very expensive. That is one reason why a client should hire an API technical architect to get things done because I am much more cost-effective than the professional services team.
What was our ROI?
Significant improvement in the performance of APIs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is more suitable to purchase Kong license from Kong vendors, not from the cloud marketplace because the cloud marketplace has a limitation on the number of API services it supports. If the customer has many APIs, it is always better to go through the vendor route to purchase the license.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Kong Konnect 8.5 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Kong is an out of the box fully featured and plugin centric easy to use API Gateway
What do you like best about the product?
Kong is full featured and really easy to setup API Gateway, featured as a leader in the Gartner magic quadrant.
Out of the box it has a lot of plugins centred in security, rate limiting, validations, and much more. It also supports custom plugins.
Kong is also a cloud native product, that works really well in containerized environments such as Kubernetes, and runs really well under load on low resources, such as low CPU and RAM.
Kong also offers an amazing and customizable API Gateway.
What do you dislike about the product?
I don't have anything that I dislike about the product, as Kong always listens to customers complaints and tries to fix the issues that are raised.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We are providing Kong Gateway to our own customers, and customers are always happy about the product.
We have several customers using OSS, Enterprise and Konnect versions.
Significant email security benefits combined with efficient spam filtering, yet cost hinders long-term use
What is our primary use case?
The clients mainly were using Proofpoint for email security, which is the primary use case.
We have used Proofpoint for email security.
What is most valuable?
Spam filtering from our partner perspective was very efficient; we were very happy with the functionality, as only relevant emails were allowed for mailboxes.
We used the Sandbox feature, and it was very beneficial concerning the Advanced Threat Protection feature.
From a business perspective, it was very helpful; it sped up our business flow and increased email delivery, and from a technical perspective, it was very effective.
What needs improvement?
Pricing might be a topic to consider regarding improvements.
I may advise Proofpoint to adjust marketing solutions based on each country itself.
For how long have I used the solution?
I had experience with Proofpoint for more than 5 or 6 years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Everything was very nice from a technical perspective, and we were very happy, especially since we used it for more than 5 or 6 years.
Everything was fully functional, and I cannot think of advanced features; all existing features were very suitable for our business flow.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It was very stable, so I would rate it as excellent.
It was very fast, and we did not experience any interruptions.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Proofpoint was excellent and very scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support from Proofpoint was absolutely excellent.
We were very satisfied with the performance and efficiency of the product.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are still using Microsoft Exchange, but left Proofpoint.
We stopped using this product last year, approximately ten months ago.
How was the initial setup?
The product was very straightforward to install; it was very easy because we used the web interface, and simple settings definitions on the ISP site were enough for the whole setup.
What about the implementation team?
At the very beginning we were working directly with the UK, but then we were redirected to a local partner, and we worked almost one year with the local partner.
We used to get a business partner in my country.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing deserves a high rating for consideration.
Cost was the reason we stopped using it.
Pricing was the issue as it becomes very expensive due to the nature of local circumstances.
What other advice do I have?
The integration with our on-prem Exchange was very straightforward; the only thing we did was redirect all email traffic over Proofpoint, so Proofpoint did everything independently, and we were very happy.
I am still receiving emails from Proofpoint's site.
Not using it at the moment, but in the short term we will be tackling that portion of the product as well.
We cannot provide feedback regarding Dynamics because we are not experienced enough at the moment; we have initiatives going on but did not get enough feedback from end users.
Based on my overall experience with Proofpoint, considering the cost perspective, I would rate it a 7 out of 10.
Deploy and manage API solutions efficiently with centralized hybrid systems
What is our primary use case?
I use
Kong Konnect as an API Gateway or API management solution. I have several use cases, including securing internal APIs within Siemens network by deploying Kong Gateway on
Amazon EKS. This acts as an API management layer to expose other internal services such as logging and
Jira APIs. Additionally, I utilize it for external use cases by deploying an API Gateway for consumers accessing services from the internet. My aim is to create a federated API management platform where various business units can still use their preferred choice of gateways while maintaining a central federation layer to control security and logging policies.
What is most valuable?
Kong Konnect is a SaaS version of Kong Gateway, and it offers a hybrid deployment. The configuration can be controlled centrally via the SaaS offering, and each team can manage their own gateway or runtime part. It is lightweight, suitable for smaller use cases without heavy initial costs, and comes in various flavors such as open source and enterprise. The documentation is excellent, and it includes a developer portal, which helps create a common distribution channel for APIs within and outside the enterprise.
What needs improvement?
Kong Konnect's RBAC needs to evolve more, as they currently offer only one or two levels of RBAC in terms of organization and teams. Additionally, the licensing model could be simplified, especially in how they charge and track usage. There are also some technical restrictions around exposing GRPC APIs, but I have not explored this yet.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Kong Konnect for the last six or seven months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
The deployment is straightforward because it's a hybrid model. The control plane is a SaaS offering, so there's not much difficulty there.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The platform is fully scalable, providing various ways to manage data planes or runtimes. They offer managed runtimes, but it's preferred that consumers manage their own runtime, which can be deployed in a containerized manner.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support from Kong is satisfactory.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was previously using
Azure Logic Apps but moved to Kong API Gateway. This decision was influenced by the need to create a service around Kong API Gateway with a federated API management platform.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward due to its hybrid deployment model, with the configuration and control plane managed as a SaaS offering.
What was our ROI?
I have not yet seen a return on investment because the project is still in its early stages.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While the pricing model isn't very clear on how usage is tracked, the initial cost and setup for using Kong Konnect are reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
The knowledge base provided by Kong is excellent, offering various learning paths not just for the technical aspects of Kong Konnect, but also for innovation within the application. It's a highly customizable platform. I would rate Kong Konnect an eight overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
A fast API managent solution
What do you like best about the product?
It is a very easy and with a vast range of features tool, and it could be integrated with many cloud environments, and on premises as well.
What do you dislike about the product?
There are some wrong documentation, a high dependency of some beta plugins, and quite high costs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Rate limiting, microservices orchestration, api security, integration of apps.
Kong is great product for APIM & having potential to become Market Leader
What do you like best about the product?
1. Having mulitple security policy to secure our api
2. We can create out of box custom plugins using Lua, js, python
3. Support Hybrid model
4. Low latency
5. Easy to setup in any cloud gateway like aws,azure,gcp etc
6. Easy to integrate with third party tools like loggly, datadog , prometheus & many more
7. Konnect has recently introduced dedicated cloud gateways, which is fully managed, multi-region API management solution.
What do you dislike about the product?
1. Thier documentation regarding things need to be more detailed
2. The developer portal needs to be more mature and should provide more functionality to the developer.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong provide centralize api managment , ensuring security , scalability , low latency & streamlined development, while providing analysitic for optimization, benefiting developers and business alike. It also enhances API security, performance, and management by providing robust features like rate limiting, authentication, and monitoring.
Konnect - Kongs SaaS Offering
What do you like best about the product?
Quick and Easy to start deploying APIs.
Provides different deployment options Hybrid and SaaS.
What do you dislike about the product?
Lack of monetization feature within the Developer Portal.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Konnect helped in setting up a full fledged API gateway in minutes.
Kong Konnect API Management with the power of cloud
What do you like best about the product?
Can have our API deployed and live within a few minutes with dedicated cloud gateway.
Integration with third party application like amazon cognito and okta.
What do you dislike about the product?
Low transparency of data kong is storing for our APIs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Prebuilt developer portal allowed us to easily publish APIs to the outside world.
Kong API Gateway is highly extensible but complex to configure.
What do you like best about the product?
Kong Gateway recently introduced several powerful features focused on AI readiness, performance, and enterprise-grade security. The latest version includes prompt compression to reduce LLM token usage and multimodal agent support for handling workflows across text, images, audio, and more. Earlier enhancements brought semantic caching, prompt guardrails, and intelligent routing—enabling the gateway to understand prompt intent, block unsafe content, and route requests to the most suitable AI model.
Core infrastructure has also been improved with incremental configuration sync for faster, lighter deployments and full OpenTelemetry integration for enhanced observability. Centralized config and consumer management through Kong Konnect make it easier to govern large-scale environments. Security features like PII sanitization, JSON threat protection, and certificate-based authentication further strengthen the platform. These updates position Kong Gateway as a smart, scalable solution for both traditional APIs and AI-driven traffic.
What do you dislike about the product?
While Kong Gateway is a powerful and feature-rich platform, there are still areas where it could improve to enhance usability and scalability. The developer experience, for instance, can be challenging—especially for newcomers. A more intuitive UI, better error messages during configuration, and clearer guidance within the dashboard would make it easier for teams to get started and manage complex setups. Additionally, while Kong offers a wide range of plugins, the documentation and transparency around which plugins are open-source, enterprise-only, or tied to Konnect could be more consistent. This would help users make informed decisions more easily.
Support for additional protocols like WebSocket, MQTT, or GraphQL subscriptions is another area of potential growth, especially for real-time and IoT use cases. High availability configurations and multi-region deployments, though possible, can be complex and would benefit from more streamlined tooling, templates, and cloud-native deployment guides. Rate limiting is solid for typical workloads, but for AI-driven or token-sensitive APIs, more advanced controls—such as token-based throttling—would be highly valuable. Lastly, integration between local setups (like decK) and Kong Konnect could be more seamless, especially for teams adopting GitOps workflows. Addressing these areas would make Kong Gateway even more developer-friendly, scalable, and ready for evolving enterprise needs.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Kong API Gateway resolves issues like API management, controlling traffic, security and monitoring. Kon centralizes the control of API Traffic, carrying it at a root cause level that is guaranteed to scale with advanced security features, such as authentication and rate limits, improving performance via load balancing. This can translate into easier API management, increased reliability, and reduced times in deploying new services, hence a benifit to users.
Market leader as A API Gateway and the Leading API Gateway for Microsevices Management
What do you like best about the product?
1. Currently Dev portal is really mature because of we can customize many of things.
2. Documentation is very improve like step by step guidance for setup the dev portal.
3. We can also integrate the third party IDP server like Okta and auth0 and much more like these.
4. Multi Dev Portal support is obviously now.
5. A plugin, I most like name as Mocking is fantastic, like you can use mock data when your API is under the development.
6. Introduce API tracing on the SaaS platform, Now we don't have to integrate the Dynatrace or other third party service.
7. AI manager is also in the SaaS platform.
8. They improved Observability & Metrics as compare to previous version.
9. AI plugin introduced like ai-proxy, ai-proxy-advanced.
10. Introduce Redis configuration for rate liming plugin.
11. A simple, user-friendly interface that's easy for anyone with basic API management knowledge to use.
What do you dislike about the product?
1. I thing they have to work on the pricing of the Kong gateway, price is much higher as compare to other tools in the market like Apigee.
2. They can improve the multi-tenant support in upcoming version.
3. Improve the RBAC for tight security and user permissions.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
1. Security, Like there is lot of plugins avalible in kong for example. Key auth, open id connect, Jwt and many more.
2. API Management, there is lot of functionality like rate limiting, load balancing, Authorization using ACL plugin and routing.
3. Monitoring and Logging
4. Dev portal for the developers, we can easily publish the api product and expose the service for new developers
