TYK VS KONG

Evaluating Kong? Here’s why you should stop

Kong doesn’t own its whole product stack. It doesn’t support all API types, and deployment options are limited. Kong customers complain about hidden costs, lack of customer support, and reduced features.

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Trusted by leading businesses

Choose Tyk: modern, collaborative, and customer-centric API management

When selecting an API management solution, the decision reaches beyond just technical capabilities—it encompasses the philosophy, support, and the value a platform brings to your enterprise. Here’s why Tyk is your best choice:

Best-in-class;
exceptional support

Tyk leads in API management with top ratings on G2 and Gartner Peer Insights. We prioritise exceptional support, enhancing user experiences, and exceeding expectations to advance your success beyond just solving problems.

User-friendly and
secure solutions

Tyk simplifies API management with its intuitive, straightforward setup – no extras needed. Security is at the core of our platform, ensuring robust and reliable protection at every layer.

Flexible
cost-effective

Tyk offers cost-effective, cloud-native API management, adaptable to your servers, the public cloud, or as multi-cloud SaaS. Our pricing plans grow with you, ensuring you only pay for what you need. Tailored to fit any business size, our flexible solutions adapt as you grow.

Choose Tyk for a partnership that grows with you, backed by a community and a team committed to your technological and business success. Experience the Tyk difference—a modern, open, and user-focused platform that truly values its customers.

FEATURE	BENEFIT	Tyk	Kong
Fully open source, not open core	No functionality hidden behind a paywall.
Supports every API type: REST, GraphQL, gRPC and Async APIs	Securely expose, manage and monetize asynchronous APIs and event streams alongside your existing synchronous APIs.
Tyk owns the entire stack, all the way down	Purposefully designed, built and optimised for solving the challenges of API management. Not dependent on Nginx or third party technologies.
Extensibility in any language, not just Lua or JS	Delivers ultimate flexibility – implement without changing your architecture or ways of working.
Native support for Kubernetes	Secure, powerful API management for Kubernetes environments.
Lightweight, ultra-performant, low overhead, cloud native gateway	Enables you to manage your APIs efficiently, without extra layers of complication over the top of your existing stack.
Fits seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines	Delivers a slick experience that flows from development to operations without a hitch.
Mature, fully centralised, multi-data centre, multi-cloud, offering	Industry-leading deployment flexibility. Can be implemented across large, complex infrastructures, distributed clouds and geographies with ease, speed and resilience.
All Gateway features availableout-of-the box	Faster and easier implementation, no hidden costs or limited functionality – simply a better experience overall.
Supports GraphQL federation natively	Allows the easy translation of existing services and data sources into GraphQL subgraphs and supergraphs.
Next generation service orchestration engine	Take all your services – REST, GraphQL, Kafka, MQTT – and publish them to a service catalogue. Stitch them together and consume through a single powerful GraphQL query language.
World’s first GraphQL developer portal	Delivers developer-driven solutions through modern, lightweight, cloud native thinking.
Programmatic enterprise-grade RBAC and ABAC	Out of the box integration enables large teams to manage access and governance securely and at scale.
Licence cost not tied to usage	Self-managed licences are available on a fixed fee, not “per API call.” Lower costs for your business – no huge increase in cost as you scale up.
Self-serve trial for enterprise	Install and use the product at your leisure, be sure Tyk meets your needs.

Leaders in API management

100,000+ customers worldwide
Category leaders in API management
Used by Fortune 500 companies, SMBs, NGOs
Powering 1M+ APls daily
Trusted by industry leaders

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Tyk vs Kong – Gartner reviews

Based on verified reviews from real users in the API management market, Kong has a rating on Gartner of 4.5 stars with 164 reviews. Tyk has a rating of 4.8 stars with 77 reviews. Have a look at the Gartner Peer Insights comparison page for more about Kong vs Tyk.

“We love Tyk! It’s a very progressive, cutting edge tool.”

Ben E Bravissimo

“Everything just works without any issue.”

Rohit Srivastava MiQ

“Tyk understands engineers.”

Sergey Goppikov Alyce

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FAQs

What is Kong?

Kong provides a range of API management tools, including a software as a service (SaaS) API management platform, enterprise-grade API management solution, API gateway, service mesh and ingress controller for Kubernetes. There’s also a development platform for building and testing APIs, along with various plugins for extending Kong’s functionality.

Users can manage their APIs centrally using Kong, across different clouds, gateways, protocols, teams and architectures, while enjoying real-time visibility through a single control plane.
What should you consider most when choosing an API gateway?
Choosing the right API gateway is crucial. We’ve looked at this in depth in relation to choosing an API management layer, examining critical factors and why they are so important. In headline terms, four considerations are key to choosing an API gateway. These are:
- Security – your gateway should deliver robust security that keeps your APIs and data safe against the latest threats.
- Reliability – whether you’re using APIs internally, externally or both, reliable performance is a must.
- Scalability – business growth often comes in sudden spurts, meaning you need an API gateway that can handle rapid scaling with ease.
- Integrations – your API gateway needs to play nicely with existing systems and microservices, as well as those you’ll be implementing in future, all without creating headaches for your hard-working IT people.
These factors mean you can manage your APIs seamlessly while keeping everyone from regulators to customers using your API products happy. Of course, outstanding customer support is important too – there’s plenty of peace of mind in knowing a dedicated team of experts has your back.

By choosing an API gateway that is secure, reliable, scalable and easy to integrate, you’re laying the foundations for successful API management. And by doing that, you’re positioning your business for future growth.