Azure API Management and Kong Konnect are sometimes compared for numerous use cases in API Management. We have a detailed features table below. You can also customize your requirements and get expert ratings comparing these two solutions against hundreds of data points across Security, Lifecycle, Support, Workflow, Pricing, Attack Protection, Access Controls, Integration, Observability, Policy Management, Governance, Service Orchestration, Ecosystem, Compliance and Authentication.
Azure API Management, part of the larger Azure Integration Services offered by Azure Cloud, supports the deployment of its components in a hybrid manner using Kubernetes or Azure Arc. This flexibility ensures that organizations can tailor their deployment strategy to their specific needs. Azure API Management is also recognized for its simple and intuitive administrator interface, promoting a user-friendly experience that simplifies the management of APIs for system administrators.
Kong Konnect provides a SaaS-based control plane and allows deploying the data plane in any environment. It integrates API gateway, service mesh, and Kubernetes ingress under a unified management interface. The platform supports design, traffic policies, security, and observability. It's designed for hybrid, multi-cloud API deployments and scalable microservice architectures.
Customize these feature priorities in Taloflow and get expert ratings for your exact use case.
| Feature | Dimensions | Description | Azure | Kong Konnect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DDoS and Abuse Protection |
|
Mitigate abuse with IP filtering, rate limits, and integration with DDoS defense tools. | Good | Good |
| Malformed Message |
|
Protects the API from malformed packet and message attacks. | Great | OK |
| Malicious Scripting |
|
Detects cross-site scripting attacks. | Great | Poor |
| Malware Detection |
|
Detects malware embedded in attachments. | OK | OK |
| Message Depth Limit |
|
Detects and prevents excessive XML/JSON depth and breadth attacks. | OK | Poor |
| Message Injection |
|
Monitors for SQL, JavaScript, and Xpath/Query injection attacks. | OK | OK |
| Parameter Inspection |
|
Protects against parameter attacks that exploit the data sent into an API. | Great | Poor |
| System Overload |
|
Throttles throughput based on values you configure to protect downstream systems. | OK | Good |
| Threat Detection & Bot Protection |
|
Block attacks with pattern detection and bot behavior analysis. | Poor | Great |
| Basic Authentication |
|
A simple authentication scheme that is built into the HTTP protocol. | OK | Good |
| Digest Access Authentication |
|
Method of authentication wherein a request from a potential user is received by a network server and then sent to a domain controller. | OK | OK |
| Identity Management |
|
Natively provides identity management or works well with your existing identity management tools. | Great | Good |
| Key Management |
|
Integrate with external secure token services. | Good | OK |
| OAuth |
|
Support for the open standard authorization framework OAuth. | OK | Great |
| OpenID |
|
Support for the open standard and decentralized authentication protocol OpenID. | Good | Good |
| Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) |
|
Integrate with external Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). | OK | OK |
| SAML Support |
|
Support for SAML, an XML-based open standard for transferring data between two parties. | OK | Good |
| Single Sign-on (SSO) |
|
Configure Single Sign-On (SSO) using SAML 2.0 for easy integration with existing web applications. | OK | Good |
| Token-based Authentication |
|
Support for generating application tokens and authenticating using tokens. | Good | Good |
| WS-Security |
|
Support for WS-Security, an extension of SOAP for more secure web services. | OK | Good |
| Webhooks |
|
Support available to build Async APIs that support user-defined HTTP callbacks from the Internet. | Good | OK |
| API Revocation |
|
Ability to block an API subscription and completely restrict an application. | Good | Good |
| Anonymous Platform Access |
|
Expose unrestricted information to anyone without tracking API usage, consumer applications, or the user's identity. | OK | Good |
| Audit Logging & Reporting |
|
Generate audit logs and reports to support compliance and operational reviews. | Great | Good |
| CCPA |
|
Regulation on data protection and privacy of the data tied to residents of California. | Great | NA |
| Certifications and Attestations |
|
Leverage third-party certifications to validate security and process maturity. | Great | Good |
| Compliance Automation |
|
Automatically invoke external scripts that determine performance, security, and design compliance. | OK | Poor |
| Data Encryption |
|
Encrypt the data in-flight. | OK | Great |
| Data Masking |
|
Ability to hide specific fields, like passwords, social security numbers, or any other sensitive information, in the message body for logging purposes. | OK | Poor |
| FedRAMP |
|
Ensures that the government security requirements outlined in NIST 800-53 are met and supplemented by the PMO of FedRAMP. | Great | Poor |
| Fine-grained Access |
|
Limit access to API operations by API consumers or restrict consumption access to specific API operations. | OK | Good |
| GDPR |
|
Regulation on data protection and data privacy tied to EU residents. | Great | Great |
| Governance & Policy Compliance |
|
Enforce internal standards on API design, security, and documentation. | Great | OK |
| HIPAA |
|
Demonstrates security and compliance with standards of the healthcare industry. | Great | Great |
| HITRUST |
|
Demonstrates compliance with HITRUST CSF, an industry-agnostic certifiable framework for regulatory compliance and risk management. This framework, developed by the not-for-profit organization HITRUST, contains a set of prescriptive controls that relate to the organizational processes and technical controls for processing, storing, and transmitting sensitive data. | Great | Poor |
| IP Whitelisting/Blacklisting |
|
Block or allow requests from an IP address without checking whether the requests are malicious. | Great | Good |
| ISO 27001 |
|
Standard for information security management systems. | Great | Poor |
| PCI |
|
Standard that ensures security guidelines are met for all entities that store, process, or transmit cardholder data and/or sensitive authentication data. | Great | Great |
| PSD2 |
|
Demonstrates compliance with European regulations related to the Payment Services Directive. | Great | Poor |
| Platform Access Levels |
|
Define what information users on the account can access and edit. | Good | Good |
| Platform Access Revocation |
|
Administrators can block or suspend consumers, revoke developer access, and block all related applications. | OK | OK |
| Policy Bundling |
|
Bundle multiple policies. | Good | Good |
| Policy Contracts |
|
Validate API conformity with your policies using contracts. | OK | OK |
| Policy Deployment |
|
Live configuration deployment of policies without any downtime. | Good | Good |
| Policy Design |
|
Combine service tiers, security policies, mediators, and monetization schemes into a pre-built 'plan' that may be attached to an API definition. | Good | Great |
| Policy Enforcement |
|
Enforce API runtime policies and API lifecycle policies. | Good | Good |
| Policy Tagging |
|
Specify rules that are only applicable to resources when they are tagged. | Good | Good |
| Policy Versioning |
|
Manage multiple versions of a policy. | Good | Good |
| RBAC |
|
Define custom user roles and associated permissions. For example, administrators, publishers and consumers can have role-based access controls defined by API endpoint. | Great | Good |
| Regulatory Data Controls |
|
Ensure data residency, logging controls, and anonymization to meet legal standards. | OK | OK |
| SOC |
|
Standard promoted by the American Institute of CPAs that ensures the integrity and privacy of customer data. | Great | Great |
| SSL/TLS |
|
Secure server communication using SSL/TLS. | OK | Good |
| User Auditing |
|
Natively provides audit logs. | OK | Great |
| API Cataloging |
|
Create a catalog of the APIs you build and share the catalog with external systems. | OK | Great |
| API Community |
|
Manage multiple developer communities, and enable collaboration between them during the entire API lifecycle. | OK | NA |
| API Monetization |
|
Supports the monetization of APIs with features like invoice generation and tiered billing categories. | OK | Poor |
| API Productization |
|
Launch your APIs as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products to monetize any niche functionality you can provide. | OK | Great |
| API Publication |
|
Publish APIs to external consumers, partners, and internal users. | OK | Good |
| CLI & Tooling Support |
|
Enable automation and scripting through command-line tools and API management interfaces. | Great | Great |
| Contract Management |
|
Contract Management | OK | OK |
| Developer Portal Customization |
|
Customize the developer portal according to the needs of different API developers. | Good | Great |
| Onboarding Workflows |
|
Simplify developer onboarding with self-service signup, app registration, and guided workflows. | Good | Good |
| SDK & Client Library Generation |
|
Automatically generate SDKs in multiple languages to streamline API integration. | OK | NA |
| Sandbox & Mock Support |
|
Provide developers with isolated environments and mock endpoints for safe API testing. | Great | Good |
| TeamCity |
|
Support available to with TeamCity for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | OK | OK |
| Caching & Compression |
|
Improve response times and reduce backend load with configurable caching and response compression. | Good | Good |
| Resilience Patterns (Circuit Breakers & Retries) |
|
Prevent cascading failures and enhance stability with built-in circuit breakers, timeouts, and retry logic. | Good | Good |
| SLA Enforcement & Quotas |
|
Enforce service level agreements with quotas, rate limits, and burst controls on API usage. | Good | Good |
| Low-Cost Pricing Per API Call |
|
Pricing model is economical for medium to high amounts of API calls (3M+ calls a month). | Good | Good |
| Low-Cost Pricing for API Gateways |
|
Pricing model is economical for API Gateways. | Good | Good |
| Low-Cost Pricing for High Egress |
|
Pricing model is economical for high amounts of egress or data transfer. | Good | Good |
| Low-Cost Pricing for Low API Call Volume |
|
Pricing model is economical for a low API call volume (<1M calls a month). | Good | Great |
| API Design Tools |
|
Provides comprehensive API design tools. | Great | Good |
| Authorization Service |
|
Integrates with an external OAuth resource server, external right repositories, and authorization services. | OK | OK |
| Directory Service |
|
Integrates with existing directory services (e.g. internal LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory). | Good | Good |
| MQTT |
|
Support available for building Async APIs to retrieve data from IoT Systems using MQTT Protocols. | Good | NA |
| Microgateway |
|
A lightweight, distributed API proxy to enforce policies and business logic at or near the service endpoints. | Poor | Great |
| Test Reports |
|
Provide test reports and detail the available report formats. | Poor | NA |
| API Composition |
|
Supports aggregating results from multiple service interfaces into a single result. | OK | Good |
| Advanced Traffic Control & Shaping |
|
Manage API traffic with routing, load balancing, and deployment strategies like canary releases and blue/green deployments. | Great | Great |
| Data Transformation & Protocol Mediation |
|
Translate data formats and mediate between protocols such as REST, SOAP, GraphQL, and gRPC. | Great | Good |
| GraphQL |
|
Supports GraphQL with REST APIs to help extract data from multiple underlying APIs. | Good | OK |
| OData |
|
Supports the Open Data Protocol (OData), which is used for defining and consuming the APIs. | OK | Poor |
| RAML |
|
Supports RESTful API Modelling Language (RAML), which uses YAML for describing the APIs. | NA | OK |
| gRPC |
|
Supports Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) APIs sent over HTTP 2.0. | OK | Good |
| API Developer Portal |
|
Allows developers to focus on configuration rather than writing custom code. | OK | Good |
| 24/7 Enterprise Support |
|
Access around-the-clock technical support with defined SLAs. | Great | Great |
| Community and Ecosystem Support |
|
Leverage open forums and partner solutions for additional guidance. | Great | Great |
| Dedicated Account Management |
|
Receive proactive help from vendor-assigned customer success managers. | Great | Great |
| Managed Service Options |
|
Offload operations to a vendor-managed service for reduced maintenance. | Great | Great |
| Training and Onboarding Services |
|
Accelerate adoption with formal training programs and onboarding help. | Good | Great |
| Upgrade & Maintenance Strategy |
|
Minimize disruption with scheduled updates, patches, and long-term support options. | Great | Great |
| Fine-Grained Access Control |
|
Define detailed access policies using scopes, roles, or attributes. | Great | Good |
| API Metadata Management |
|
Efficiently manage your API metadata. | Poor | Good |
| Custom Workflow |
|
Enforce corporate policies via customizable workflows and gating for when users perform specific actions, like registration, subscription, API creation, and application creation. | OK | NA |
| Dependency Management |
|
Supports dependency management features between APIs and services. | Good | Good |
| Impact Analysis |
|
Views into how the API, service tier, or monetization schedule modifications may impact consumers, developers, and providers. | Poor | NA |
| Issue Management |
|
Perform exception analysis and track open issues. | OK | NA |
| Workflow Management |
|
Automate the processes of the entire API lifecycle by applying specific rules and policies at each stage. | OK | OK |
| Amazon CodeDeploy |
|
OK | NA | |
| Azure DevOps |
|
Great | OK | |
| Bamboo |
|
Support available to with Bamboo for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | OK | OK |
| CI/CD Integration |
|
Integrate with your continuous integration, development, and deployment practices. | Good | OK |
| CircleCI |
|
Support available to with CircleCI for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | Poor | OK |
| Cloud Deployment (SaaS) |
|
All the software components for the API management platform are run on a cloud environment. | Good | Great |
| CodeShip |
|
Support available to with CodeShip for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | Poor | OK |
| Cyber Ark |
|
Support available to integrate with Cyber Ark for access management. | NA | Poor |
| ForgeRock |
|
Support available to integrate with ForgeRock for access management. | NA | OK |
| GitLab CI |
|
Support available to with GitLab CI for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | Poor | OK |
| Google Cloud Deploy |
|
Poor | OK | |
| Hybrid Deployment |
|
Some software components of the API management platform are run in a cloud environment, while others are run in your data centers. | Good | Great |
| IBM Security Verify |
|
Support available to integrate with IBM Security Verify for access management. | NA | Poor |
| Jenkins |
|
Support available to with Jenkins for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | OK | OK |
| Micro Focus |
|
Support available to integrate with Micro Focus for access management. | NA | Poor |
| Microsoft Active Directory |
|
Support available to integrate with Azure AD for authentication. | Good | Good |
| Okta |
|
Support available to Okta API Access Management (OAuth as a Service) with the platform. | Good | Great |
| On-premises Deployment |
|
All the software components for the API management platform are deployed on machines in your data centers. | OK | NA |
| OneLogin |
|
Support available to integrate with OneLogin for access management. | OK | OK |
| Ping Identity |
|
Support available to integrate with Ping Identity for access management. | NA | OK |
| Travis CI |
|
Support available to with Travis CI for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. | Poor | OK |
| API Discovery |
|
Provide an API portal or catalog for API discovery. | OK | Good |
| API Mediation |
|
Supports message format transformation, protocol conversion, and service call formatting. | OK | OK |
| API Mocking Tools |
|
Supports the creation of a stub service when the backend is not available. | OK | Great |
| API Search |
|
Perform API searches ranging from simple keyword searches to sophisticated, model-based, or metadata-based searches. | OK | Great |
| API Test Automation |
|
Automatically generate and execute tests. | Poor | OK |
| API Version Management |
|
Support and maintain different versions of APIs. | Good | Good |
| Automated Builds |
|
Automated builds and deployments. | OK | NA |
| Automatic API Generation |
|
Supports the automatic generation of API specs from code. | Poor | OK |
| Client SDK |
|
Auto generate client-side code (e.g., Javascript, Node.js, Python libraries). | OK | NA |
| Common API Design |
|
Supports defining, implementing, and validating consistent design standards for APIs across the organization. | OK | Good |
| Load Balancing |
|
Balances load across multiple service endpoint hosts and API endpoint hosts. | OK | Great |
| OAS 2.0 |
|
Supports Open API Standard v2.0, which is used for designing RESTful APIs. | Good | Great |
| OAS 3.0 |
|
Supports Open API Standard v3.0, which is used for RESTful APIs. | Good | Good |
| Prebuilt API Mappings |
|
Get prebuilt API specifications and mappings based on business functions or industry verticals like banking, finance, travel, and retail. | Poor | NA |
| Server Sent Events (SSE) |
|
Build Async APIs that support server push technology, which enables automatic server updates to clients via an HTTP connection. | Good | OK |
| Test Console |
|
Provides interactive tools to test an API without writing test code. | Poor | Good |
| Traceability |
|
Trace an API through its execution. | OK | Great |
| WSDL |
|
Supports Web Services Description Language (WSDL), an XML format for SOAP-based web services. | OK | NA |
| WebSockets |
|
Supports communication over WebSockets. | Good | Great |
| API Report Design |
|
Create new reports and dashboards through a wizard that pulls data from different types of metrics. | OK | OK |
| API Usage Monitoring |
|
Get detailed reports on your total traffic volume coming through the API platform's gateway. | Good | Great |
| Activity Logging |
|
Provides API performance and error logging. | OK | Great |
| Alerting and Notifications |
|
Delivers notifications and alerts when Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are approaching or have exceeded a specified threshold. | OK | Good |
| Cache Analytics |
|
Provides in-cache analytics and covers how cache information is structured (e.g., web service, API, subscriber, application, organizational levels). | Poor | Poor |
| Granular Analytics & Monitoring |
|
Monitor API performance with high-resolution metrics segmented by endpoint, user, or region. | Great | Good |
| Observability (Logging & Tracing) |
|
Gain full visibility into API behavior through logging, distributed tracing, and correlation ID support. | Great | Great |
| QoS Dashboard |
|
Reporting and dashboarding to monitor reliability, availability, scalability, and performance. | OK | Great |
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