KrakenD AI & API Gateway Reviews & Product Details

KrakenD provides a flexible and extensible API gateway solution that supports contract-first setups using OpenAPI specifications. It allows for seamless integration of custom Go plugins to extend functionality beyond the stock configuration. The collaborative support ensures that users receive real answers and assistance in solving complex problems, particularly with MCP specifications. However, the documentation could be improved to better differentiate between Enterprise and Community versions and to provide comprehensive coverage of all features and behaviors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The flexibility. We run a contract-first setup: our OpenAPI specs are the single source of truth, and a build step compiles them into KrakenD configuration. Not a single line of our gateway config is written by hand, and KrakenD never fought us on that.

When we hit something the stock configuration could not express, the plugin system let us write our own Go plugins and drop them in. We have several running in production today. Being able to extend the gateway instead of working around it is the main reason we are still on it.

The support deserves its own paragraph, and I did not expect to be writing that. It has been genuinely collaborative: we ask a question, we get a real answer, and on the harder problems we worked through them together rather than being handed the tool and left to figure it out. On MCP in particular they acted on what we asked for and updated KrakenD to the recent MCP specs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The declarative, configuration driven model. We define our endpoints, routing and policies as templates rather than writing gateway code, which keeps the setup easy to reason about, review and version. It also made updating our configuration for a newer release straightforward, and the documentation is clear enough that an AI coding assistant can handle most of that work. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nothing material. It does what we need it to do, the configuration model is clear, and it has been easy to adopt and maintain. Our wish list is small and mostly about further depth in the documentation as our usage grows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love how KrakenD's Flexible Configuration and template system enabled us to move to a true self-service model for our API gateway. With over 500+ live routes and 15 engineering teams, managing everything from a single repo would have been impossible without this. The plugin system is also fantastic—we built production-ready Go plugins for compliance and API key management in weeks, not months. The performance is outstanding: we serve 500 million API calls daily with minimal infrastructure and sub-millisecond gateway overhead. The built-in features like JWT/OIDC validation, CEL policies, rate limiting, OpenTelemetry, and automatic OpenAPI spec generation save us massive amounts of engineering time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The main pain point has been automating plugin compatibility checks when KrakenD base images update. We had to invest in our own GitHub Actions workflow to ensure our in-house plugins remain compatible with new releases. Some official tooling or boilerplate for plugin compatibility validation would make life easier for teams maintaining custom plugins across versions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really appreciate the flexibility KrakenD offers, especially the open source model that let us test and deploy in our own environment before committing. The plugin system is absolutely critical for our use case—we've built custom plugins for BFF aggregation and JWT rewriting, which are now at the core of our mobile API architecture. The ability to aggregate multiple backend calls into a single API call has drastically reduced latency and improved our mobile experience. Telemetry has also been unexpectedly valuable, surfacing anomalies we wouldn't have found otherwise. The direct, responsive communication with the KrakenD team, even up to the CEO, is a major plus. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The biggest pain points have been the lack of a fully managed, hosted version (you have to run your own infrastructure, which can be a barrier for some teams) and the training resources. What's available is really just API gateway 101-level content, but we needed much deeper, 301-level training for our engineers and that wasn't available, even for a fee. Improving these would make it a perfect solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really appreciate KrakenD's ease of deployment and setup—getting it running in our Kubernetes environment was straightforward, and it doesn't require constant babysitting. The plugin architecture is a standout, allowing us to customize functionality and empowering teams to self-serve without always needing help from my team. This has significantly reduced the operational burden and sped up our workflows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The main pain points have been around plugin development: KrakenD only supports Lua and Go for plugins, which isn't ideal since our teams primarily use TypeScript. This creates a learning curve and slows us down. Additionally, KrakenD's OpenAPI schema support is limited; we encountered issues integrating valid OpenAPI schemas, especially with URL and parameter handling, making it less seamless than we hoped. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

KrakenD is highly customizable, fairly easy to use, and quick to get hands-on with. Adding plugins is straightforward, and made even easier thanks to the provided skill. The available plugins, regular updates, and responsiveness of the KrakenD team make it a product you can truly rely on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The AI features could stand to be released faster and offer the same level of customizability. Some plugins can occasionally be quite opinionated about things that aren't necessarily the textbook standards. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Community Edition with its broad feature set is truly compelling. If you're a startup or a medium-sized business, it feels like it solves 90% of typical API gateway problems. Additionally, it comes with excellent documentation and a straightforward setup, allowing you to get started quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For small to medium-sized businesses, upgrading to the paid version is hardly worthwhile unless you absolutely need specific features of these plans. However, this is mainly due to the high price, not the features and services, which are unmatched compared to other gateways and are very good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ease of integration, extensibility, and high performance. Supported by a top-notch support team. Krakend adds agility to value delivery in our organization at a competitive cost. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Does not include a UI to accelerate adoption, file management, validation, and general administration. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how simple it is to set up and get people onboarded. I also appreciate its performance under pressure, its ability to manage a large list of endpoints, and the architecture/design behind it. On top of that, it integrates easily with our serverless application. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don’t like that we can’t provide the configuration at runtime; it has to be baked in at build time. This makes things awkward when we need to update the config but still want to keep the same infrastructure. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I mostly use the API gateway, and I really like how easy it is to configure. The plugin system has been a real lifesaver, since it’s allowed us to add functionality and extend what we can do without much hassle. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

So far none, maybe having hot reload to apply changes without having to restart would have been nice to have Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.