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KrakenD 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?

âś‹ Most important consideration

  • Kong and KrakenD both offer generally great performance. However, the different databases supported by KrakenD make for better multi-region performance.

🤔 Strongly consider KrakenD over Kong if

  • You want traffic management features like traffic prioritization and quota management. 
  • You’re focused on having better API composition for aggregating results from multiple backend services.

🤔 Strongly consider Kong over KrakenD if

  • You need to have better access control features like domain access policies and role-based access controls (RBAC).
  • You want best-in-class support for API protocols like Swagger, RAML, gRPC and AsyncAPI.
  • You want protocol conversion. 

📝 Other Notes

  • KrakenD is stateless whereas Kong is stateful. So with KrakenD, there’s no need to store the configuration in a database or node.
  • Kong has better support for OAuth and OpenID in comparison to KrakenD.

KrakenD

KrakenD serves as a stateless, distributed, high-performance API Gateway that supports organizations in their journey towards adopting microservices. KrakenD embraces backend for frontend and micro-frontend patterns, effectively isolating the client in microservices communications, and thereby ensuring robust client-server decoupling. This approach enhances scalability and resilience, which are two vital elements in a microservices architecture. Another noteworthy feature of KrakenD is its configuration-as-code approach, which resonates with developers by facilitating easy setup and maintenance, leading to increased efficiency in software development processes.

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"

  • The nodes in Kong require coordination and synchronization.

Feature Comparison

Integration With Other Services

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About the Author

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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