If you’ve spent any time managing APIs, you’ve almost certainly run into Kong. It’s one of the most widely used open source API gateways on the market, but it does not work for every team. Maybe you hate the steep learning curve, are frustrated by how resource heavy it gets at scale, or just got priced out of the enterprise plan. That’s exactly why so many engineering teams are researching 10 Alternatives for Kong right now. No gateway is one-size-fits-all, and picking the wrong one can slow deployments, blow your cloud budget, and leave your APIs vulnerable.

This isn’t just another generic list of tools. Every alternative on this list has proven production usage, transparent pricing, and well-documented tradeoffs compared to Kong. We will break down ideal use cases, real world costs, pros, cons, and exactly which team each tool works best for. By the end you won’t just have a list of names — you will know exactly which gateway you should test first for your stack.

1. KrakenD

KrakenD is one of the fastest growing Kong alternatives right now, and for good reason. Built from the ground up for performance, this open source gateway regularly outperforms Kong by 3-5x on throughput benchmarks while using 70% less memory. Unlike Kong, it does not rely on a database at runtime, which means you won’t wake up to outages because your Postgres instance went down. Most teams that switch from Kong to KrakenD report cutting their gateway hosting costs in half within 30 days.

The biggest difference you will notice right away is the configuration model. KrakenD uses declarative config files, no admin UI required for core functionality. This makes it perfect for teams that practice infrastructure as code, but it can feel limiting if you want point and click management. For small teams, the open source version has every feature you will ever need. The enterprise tier only adds official support and advanced monitoring tools.

Here is what most teams love about KrakenD compared to Kong:

• No runtime database dependency
• Native response aggregation built in
• Zero vendor lock in of any kind
• Static binary deployment with zero dependencies

This gateway is not for everyone. If you need a large plugin ecosystem or heavy enterprise governance features, KrakenD will feel too bare bones. But if you are tired of Kong eating half your Kubernetes cluster memory just to route traffic, this should be the first alternative you test. Most production teams get a full test environment running in less than an hour.

2. Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX is the closest direct competitor to Kong on this list, and it’s the one most former Kong users switch to when they outgrow Kong’s open source tier. Backed by the Apache Foundation, this fully open source gateway matches almost every feature Kong offers, but with better performance and a far more permissive license. As of 2024, over 40% of teams evaluating Kong end up testing APISIX as their first alternative.

One of the biggest complaints about Kong is that all the good features get locked behind the enterprise paywall. That is not the case with APISIX. Every core feature including rate limiting, authentication, logging, and circuit breaking is available in the open source version. The enterprise tier only adds dedicated support and compliance certifications, not critical functionality.

If you are comparing side by side for common workloads, this table will help:

Feature	Kong OSS	APISIX OSS
JWT Auth	Yes	Yes
Rate Limiting	Basic only	Advanced
Admin Web UI	Paid only	Free
Public Plugins	80+	100+

The only real downside to APISIX right now is documentation. While it is improving quickly, you will run into edge cases that are not well documented, especially for custom plugins. If you have a small engineering team that prefers fully polished documentation, you may want to test Tyk instead.

3. Tyk

Tyk is the mature, enterprise-ready alternative for teams that left Kong over pricing disputes. Launched one year before Kong, Tyk has spent over a decade building a stable, well documented gateway that works for both small startups and Fortune 500 companies. Unlike Kong, Tyk never locks core security features behind paywalls.

You will get full support for OpenID Connect, mTLS, advanced rate limiting, and a full admin dashboard even on the free open source tier. The enterprise plan adds SSO, compliance auditing, and 24/7 dedicated support. Many teams report that Tyk’s enterprise pricing is 30-40% cheaper than Kong’s for the same feature set.

Before you commit to Tyk, note these important tradeoffs:

1. Tyk runs slightly slower than both APISIX and KrakenD
2. Custom plugins require Go language knowledge
3. Self hosting requires a Redis instance at all times
4. Cloud hosted tier has minimum monthly billing for enterprise accounts

For teams that prioritize stability and documentation over raw maximum performance, Tyk is almost always the right pick. It is also the best option for teams working in regulated industries that need proven compliance track records.

4. Azure API Management

If you run most of your infrastructure on Azure, this is the Kong alternative you should test first. Azure API Management is the native gateway for the Microsoft cloud, and it integrates seamlessly with every other Azure service out of the box. You don’t have to manage servers, update software, or handle backups. Microsoft handles all of that for you.

Many teams switch from self hosted Kong to Azure API Management just to eliminate the operational overhead. For most medium workloads, it ends up being cheaper than running and maintaining your own Kong cluster on Azure virtual machines or Kubernetes. You also get built in integration with Azure Active Directory, Monitor, and Defender for Cloud.

The biggest downside is vendor lock in. Once you build your workflows around Azure API Management, moving anywhere else will require a full rewrite of all your gateway policies. It is also significantly more expensive if you only have a small number of APIs to manage.

This is not the right pick for multi cloud teams, or teams that plan to move providers any time soon. But if you are all in on Azure already, this will almost always be simpler, cheaper, and more reliable than running Kong yourself.

5. AWS API Gateway

AWS API Gateway is the most widely used managed API gateway on the planet, and for good reason. Just like the Azure alternative, it integrates natively with every AWS service, requires zero infrastructure management, and scales automatically to handle any amount of traffic. For teams running on AWS, it is almost always the easiest Kong replacement.

You can deploy a production ready gateway in 5 minutes, with built in logging, monitoring, authentication and rate limiting. The pay per use pricing model means you only pay for what you use, with no minimum fees. Most small teams run their entire API setup for less than $10 per month, something that is impossible with self hosted Kong.

The main downsides are vendor lock in, cold starts for the v2 gateway, and limited customisation options. You cannot run custom code at the gateway layer easily, and advanced routing logic can get complicated very quickly. It also works very poorly for workloads running outside of AWS.

If you are 100% on AWS and have standard gateway requirements, this is the lowest effort replacement for Kong you will find. You will eliminate all gateway maintenance work overnight, and almost always save money at the same time.

6. Gloo Edge

Gloo Edge is the Kong alternative built exclusively for Kubernetes environments. If you run Kong on Kubernetes and hate how bloated the deployment has become, Gloo Edge was built for you. It is designed from the ground up to work with cloud native patterns, service meshes, and modern container workflows.

Built on top of Envoy, Gloo Edge delivers much better performance than Kong on Kubernetes, with far lower resource overhead. It also has native support for GraphQL, gRPC, and event driven architectures that Kong only added recently. Solo.io, the company behind Gloo Edge, has built a reputation for very good enterprise support.

Unlike Kong, Gloo Edge does not try to be everything for everyone. It only targets Kubernetes workloads, so if you run virtual machines or bare metal servers this is not the tool for you. The open source tier covers most use cases, but advanced security features require the enterprise plan.

This is the best option for teams that are fully committed to Kubernetes and cloud native architecture. It is also the natural next step if you are planning to adopt a service mesh in the next 12 months.

7. Traefik

Traefik started life as an ingress controller for Kubernetes, but it has grown into a full featured API gateway that works very well as a Kong alternative. It is extremely popular with small teams and solo developers, thanks to its incredibly simple setup and zero configuration auto discovery.

One of Traefik’s best features is that it automatically detects new services and routes traffic to them without any manual changes. You will never have to update gateway config every time you deploy a new service. The open source version has all core features, and the paid enterprise tier is very reasonably priced.

Traefik is not perfect. It lacks many of the advanced governance and enterprise features that Kong offers. It also has a much smaller plugin ecosystem, and performance falls off significantly at very high throughput levels. For teams running over 100k requests per second, you will want to pick something faster.

For small teams, startups, and anyone that values simplicity over maximum features, Traefik is one of the best Kong alternatives available. Most teams get it fully set up and running in under 15 minutes.

8. Express Gateway

Express Gateway is the Kong alternative for Javascript and Node.js teams. Built entirely on Express.js, the most popular Node.js web framework, this gateway lets you write custom plugins and logic using the same language your team already uses every day. No need to learn Lua or Go just to extend your gateway.

This is the most approachable gateway on this list for full stack developers. You can extend it, debug it, and modify it using tools you already know. The entire codebase is small, readable, and easy to fork if you need custom changes. It also has a very friendly and active open source community.

It will never win performance benchmarks. Express Gateway runs significantly slower than all the other options on this list. It is not suitable for high throughput production workloads, or teams that need enterprise grade reliability. It also has very limited native enterprise features.

This is an excellent choice for internal tools, staging environments, small production APIs, and teams that only work with Javascript. For those use cases, it will be far more pleasant to work with than Kong ever was.

9. WSO2 API Manager

WSO2 API Manager is the full featured enterprise alternative for very large organisations. If you left Kong because it could not handle the governance, compliance, and scale requirements of a 10,000 person company, WSO2 is almost certainly what you are looking for.

It has every enterprise feature you could ever want: full lifecycle management, developer portals, monetisation tools, compliance auditing, multi region deployment, and third party system integrations. It is also fully open source, with no artificial feature locks between tiers.

There is a very big catch: WSO2 is extremely complex. It requires dedicated staff to run and maintain, it has a very steep learning curve, and it is overkill for 95% of teams. Small teams will be completely overwhelmed by the number of options and configuration settings.

Do not test this unless you work at a large enterprise with formal governance requirements. For those teams however, it is the best alternative to Kong Enterprise on the market today.

10. Envoy

Envoy is not really a full API gateway out of the box — it is a high performance proxy that you can build your own gateway on top of. If you have outgrown every off the shelf gateway including Kong, and you are comfortable building custom tooling, Envoy is the best foundation you can use.

Originally built by Lyft, Envoy is now the underlying proxy that powers almost every modern API gateway and service mesh including APISIX, Gloo Edge, and Istio. It is blazingly fast, extremely stable, and can handle almost any workload you throw at it.

You should only go this route if you have a very good reason. Building a gateway on Envoy requires months of engineering work, ongoing maintenance, and deep domain expertise. For most teams, you will be much better off using one of the pre built gateways that already runs on Envoy.

For teams that need complete control over every part of their gateway stack, this is the ultimate Kong alternative. There is no limit to what you can build on top of Envoy, and you will never outgrow its capabilities.

At the end of the day, there is no single best replacement for Kong. The right gateway for your team depends entirely on your infrastructure, team size, performance needs and budget. KrakenD and APISIX are great general purpose open source options, managed gateways work best for cloud native teams, and enterprise options like Tyk and WSO2 work for large regulated organisations.

Don’t just pick the first name you recognise. Pick 1 or 2 options from this list that match your use case, spin up a test environment, and run a simple load test with real traffic from your staging environment. Most teams find the right replacement after just one week of testing, and never look back at Kong again.