AWS API Gateway vs. Kong Comparison

Which is the best API Gateway provider for you?

November 17, 2022

Written by

Louis-Victor Jadavji, Cofounder of Taloflow

Who should you choose and why?

✋ Most important consideration

Amazon API Gateway is much better suited for working with other AWS services in its ecosystem.

🤔 Strongly consider AWS API Gateway over Kong if

You want to use identity management and authorization services.
You’d like out-of-the-box support for Open Banking or FHIR (used in healthcare).
You’re focussed on better quota management.

🤔 Strongly consider Kong over AWS API Gateway if

You’d like advanced role-based access control (RBAC) features.
You want to secure your SOAP-based web services with WS-security.
You’d like control over API composition and want to aggregate results from multiple services.
Protocol conversion is important to you.

📝 Other Notes

Amazon API Gateway isn’t as user-friendly and has fewer integrations.
Kong has better support for RAML.
Kong does not provide a comprehensive set of DevOps tools for the integration.

Amazon API Gateway

Amazon API Gateway is a fully-managed service, which forms the public-facing part of Amazon’s serverless infrastructure in collaboration with AWS Lambda. While AWS Lambda is responsible for executing the code, the API Gateway exposes those endpoints to the necessary services, thereby providing an effective and efficient interface between Amazon's serverless infrastructure and the end-users. This symbiotic relationship between AWS Lambda and API Gateway enables Amazon to deliver a robust, efficient, and scalable API management solution.

Kong Gateway

Kong’s API Gateway delivers high performance while providing a level of deployment flexibility that is much appreciated by software engineers. The service is built on NGINX Open Source and maintains a relatively small footprint. However, it is essential to note that this solution requires the use of Lua scripts and external databases to handle gateway configurations and API policies. Despite these requirements, Kong’s API Gateway's high performance and flexibility make it an attractive solution in the realm of API management.

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"Gotchas"

Amazon API Gateway does not support out-of-the-box statistics for the runtime operations of the API.

Feature Comparison

Integration With Other Services

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Compliance Requirements

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About the Author

Louis-Victor Jadavji

Louis-Victor Jadavji (or "LV") is a recognized leader in the cloud services industry. He's helped 50+ digital native companies like ModusBox, Later, and NS1 choose the right cloud stack for their applications. His work has been featured in Forbes (30 Under 30 All-Star), HuffPost, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and Inc. Magazine.

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