Kong vs. Azure API Management

Kong is built on NGINX and OpenResty, giving it strong baseline throughput for a gateway that manages its own open-source ecosystem. However, Kong relies on PostgreSQL or Cassandra for configuration persistence, which introduces latency during config propagation and creates a potential bottleneck at scale. Configuration updates happen via database polling every 5-10 seconds.

Azure API Management is a fully managed service, which means Microsoft handles the infrastructure scaling. Performance varies significantly by pricing tier — the Consumption tier has cold-start latency, while Premium tiers offer dedicated capacity. However, throughput is generally lower than self-managed gateways because every request passes through Azure's managed proxy layer.

Apache APISIX eliminates the database bottleneck entirely by using etcd as its configuration store, enabling real-time config updates in milliseconds. In head-to-head benchmarks between APISIX 3.0 and Kong 3.0, APISIX delivers 140% of Kong's throughput without plugins and 200% with plugins enabled — achieving 23,000 QPS per core with an average latency of just 0.2 milliseconds.

Kong offers the most deployment flexibility among commercial gateways — it runs on any cloud, on-prem, in Docker containers, and on Kubernetes. Its Konnect SaaS platform provides a managed control plane while data planes run in your infrastructure. This makes Kong a reasonable choice for multi-cloud strategies, though the most valuable enterprise features still require a commercial license.

Azure API Management is fundamentally an Azure service. While Microsoft introduced a self-hosted gateway option for hybrid scenarios, the control plane always remains in Azure, requiring network connectivity back to Azure for policy updates and analytics. Organizations running workloads on AWS, GCP, or on-prem cannot fully decouple from Azure — creating significant lock-in for multi-cloud strategies.

Apache APISIX is completely cloud-neutral. It runs identically on AWS, Azure, GCP, bare metal, or any Kubernetes cluster. The entire stack — data plane, control plane (etcd), and all 100+ plugins — is open source under Apache 2.0. There is no managed-service dependency or phone-home requirement. API7 Enterprise builds on this foundation with commercial support and a management dashboard while preserving full infrastructure portability.

Kong boasts 300+ plugins, making it one of the largest plugin ecosystems among API gateways. However, many of the most valuable enterprise features — OpenID Connect, FIPS 140-2 compliance, advanced rate limiting, plugin ordering, and GraphQL proxying — are locked behind paid Enterprise licenses. The open-source Kong Gateway has a more limited feature set in practice.

Azure API Management uses an XML-based policy system instead of traditional plugins. Built-in policies cover common use cases (authentication, rate limiting, caching, transformation), but there is no third-party plugin marketplace. Custom logic requires C# policy expressions or Azure Functions, which ties development to the Azure toolchain.

Apache APISIX ships 100+ plugins that are fully open-source with no enterprise paywall. Features that Kong charges for — dynamic routing, hot reload, advanced rate limiting, and full observability — are included out of the box. APISIX also supports the broadest range of custom plugin languages: Lua, Java, Go, Python, and WebAssembly.

Kong's open-source version is free, but organizations needing enterprise features (RBAC, OIDC, dev portal, advanced analytics) must purchase a Kong Enterprise subscription. Pricing is typically around $5,350 per year for 5 million API requests and 50 services, scaling upward for larger deployments. Konnect SaaS pricing adds per-service and per-request fees.

Azure API Management uses tier-based pricing. The Consumption tier charges per API call ($3.50 per million calls), which is cost-effective at low volumes but scales linearly. The Premium tier — required for VNet integration, multi-region deployment, and higher SLAs — starts at approximately $2,800 per month per unit, making it one of the most expensive API gateway options at scale.

API7 Enterprise, built on Apache APISIX, uses CPU-core-based pricing at approximately $1,260 for 5 million API requests across 3 clusters and 50 services — less than a quarter of Kong's cost. Because the open-source APISIX includes all plugins without an enterprise paywall, organizations avoid the hidden cost of upgrading tiers to access critical features.

Kong's open-source core is licensed under Apache 2.0, which provides some protection against vendor lock-in. However, Kong Inc. controls the project roadmap, and the most valuable enterprise features are closed-source. The company has previously changed licensing terms for its Enterprise product, and organizations dependent on enterprise-only features face switching costs.

Azure API Management is a proprietary Microsoft service with no open-source component. API configurations, policies, and developer portal content are stored in Azure-specific formats. Migrating away requires re-implementing proxies, policies, authentication flows, and developer portal functionality from scratch — a process that typically takes months for large deployments.

Apache APISIX has the lowest vendor lock-in risk in this comparison. It is licensed under Apache 2.0 and governed by the Apache Software Foundation — no single company controls the project. All features, plugins, and the complete codebase are open source. API7.ai is the commercial company behind APISIX and offers API7 Enterprise with professional support, but the core technology remains fully community governed.