Kong API Gateway makes life easier will all the existing capabilities that it provides through its user interface for Configuring Services, routes along with handling SSH requirements through Kong itself. It also helps in having a constant access to client servers that are on SSH but needs to be accessed while developing solutions to integrate with the apis where the ips are not static. This is one case that we use kong regularly for. I like the Request Transformation and Response Transformation feature of Kong the most. Its real pain doing that with other API Gateway solutions. If we go with native way of handling Request or Response transformations with Spring Cloud API Gateway etc.. we end with many issues that takes hell a lot of time to fix but with Kong it doesn't need to be deployed every time and with a save everything gets updated and fixing it is also gets easier and requires less effort. Also the logs of kong are also pretty much descriptive about the errors that we face in the Request routing failures, request tracking, identify the reason for failures etc.. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Currently I dont have any dislikes regarding Kong API Gateway and I have worked with Community and Enterprise versions and never found any issues using it. It makes our life simple. I have recommended it at many places wherever there was a need to introduce API Gateway solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It relies on open standards instead of proprietary technology. It doesn't require specialized developers like other platforms. It's the most performant mainstream gateway on the market Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

From a consulting perspective - there's not a lot of work for partners to do other than a bit of architecture, some custom plugins, and devops work. Customers that leverage the developer portal may have customizations there, but it's so easy to use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Unmatched Extensibility via Plugins: The vast library of existing plugins covers most common use cases out of the box. More importantly, the ability to create custom plugins is a game-changer. It ensures you are never limited by the platform and can implement any required logic directly at the gateway level, giving you complete control over your API traffic.

Powerful Data Transformation: The ability to transform data in flight is an incredibly useful and practical feature. It simplifies integration between different services and systems.

Flexible Integration: Because of the robust data transformation features, we have the flexibility to connect with virtually any type of backend data source, regardless of its data format.

Excellent Support and Features: The platform is well-supported and offers a rich set of features that address the complex needs of modern API management. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am looking more on AI side where they are lacking little bit. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Performance and extensibility, platform independence & cloud capability. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lack of AI features and plugins capability Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lightweight but powerful, deploy anywhere Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

control plane groups, lua based plugins, lua is dead Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kong has built-in API key management and can implement Zero Trust. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some requires extensive time to setup/configuration. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Performance improvements in the traffic routing and latency reduction are noticeable. impressive integration capabilities with AI workloads. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

debugging issues at scale becomes a bit tricky without external observability tools, so my suggestion to have own observability feature. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Improved support for Kubernetes and cloud-native deployments.

Enhanced plugin development framework for custom integrations.

Better observability features, including metrics and logging.

Streamlined admin API and declarative configuration options. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some things that made me like Kong Gateway less include:

Complexity in configuration and setup compared to some alternatives.

Limited built-in support for advanced traffic management features.

Plugin ecosystem can be fragmented and sometimes lacks documentation.

Performance overhead when running many plugins.

UI and monitoring tools are less mature than some competitors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A single interface for all offering like API management, ingress controllers and service mesh Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Integration with multiple other vendors and OEMs Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kuma API Gateway by Kong is the most impressive product related to domain im active rn Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lesser Open Source practise and lesser istio integration pulls it from an efficient egress solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.