Kong alternatives for API rate limiting

If you’re looking for alternatives to Kong for API rate limiting, here are the main options depending on where you want to enforce limits:

API gateways / reverse proxies

• NGINX / NGINX Plus
  Very common for rate limiting at the edge. Fast, simple, and widely deployed.

• Envoy Proxy
  Strong choice for cloud-native setups and service mesh environments. Supports local and global rate limiting.

• Traefik
  Easier to use in container/Kubernetes environments. Supports middleware-based rate limiting.

• Apache APISIX
  Open-source API gateway with built-in rate limiting, plugin architecture, and good performance.

• Tyk
  Full API management platform with rate limiting, analytics, and developer portal features.

• Gravitee
  API management/gateway platform with quotas, throttling, and policy controls.

• WSO2 API Manager
  More enterprise-heavy, but includes robust throttling/rate limit policies.

Cloud-managed API gateways

• AWS API Gateway
  Built-in throttling, usage plans, and quotas.

• Azure API Management
  Rate limiting policies, quotas, and analytics.

• Google Cloud API Gateway / Apigee
  Good for managed API control; Apigee is especially strong for policy-based traffic management.

Library/app-level rate limiting

If you want to implement limits inside your app rather than at the gateway:

• express-rate-limit for Node.js/Express
• Bucket4j for Java
• django-ratelimit for Python/Django
• Flask-Limiter for Python/Flask
• SlowApi for FastAPI

Distributed rate limiting stores

If you need a custom solution:

• Redis is the most common backend for shared counters/tokens
• Memcached can be used, though Redis is more typical
• PostgreSQL can work for lower scale or simpler deployments

Quick recommendations

• Best Kong-like open-source alternative: Apache APISIX
• Best for Kubernetes/service mesh: Envoy
• Best simple edge rate limiting: NGINX
• Best managed cloud option: AWS API Gateway or Azure API Management
• Best enterprise API management: Tyk, Gravitee, or WSO2

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a comparison table,
2. the best option for your stack (AWS/Kubernetes/on-prem/etc.), or
3. pricing/open-source vs enterprise recommendations.