What are the best alternatives to Kong?

Here are the most common alternatives to Kong for API gateway / API management, grouped by use case:

Open-source / self-hosted API gateways

• Apache APISIX
  High-performance, very extensible, lots of plugins, good choice if you want a modern open-source gateway.
• NGINX / NGINX Plus
  Very reliable and fast, especially if you already use NGINX. Plus adds advanced API gateway features.
• Tyk
  Strong open-source core and commercial offering. Good developer experience and analytics.
• Gravitee APIM
  Full API management platform, not just a gateway; good for policies, portals, and governance.
• KrakenD
  Excellent for API aggregation/composition and high performance. Less of a full management suite.
• Traefik
  Popular in cloud-native/Kubernetes environments; simpler gateway/edge routing rather than full API management.
• Gloo Gateway
  Built on Envoy, strong for Kubernetes and service mesh integrations.
• Envoy Gateway / Envoy Proxy
  Great if you want maximum control and are comfortable assembling more of the platform yourself.
• Ambassador Edge Stack
  Kubernetes-focused API gateway, built on Envoy, with API management features.
• Spring Cloud Gateway
  Best if your stack is heavily Java/Spring and you want app-level gateway control.

Managed cloud API gateways

• AWS API Gateway
  Best if you’re deeply on AWS and want fully managed serverless-style API management.
• Azure API Management
  Strong enterprise API management, policy engine, portal, and governance.
• Google Cloud API Gateway / Apigee
  Apigee is especially strong for enterprise API management; Google’s gateway is simpler.
• Azure Front Door / AWS CloudFront + Lambda@Edge
  More edge-routing than full API gateway, but useful in some architectures.

Best picks by scenario

• Best open-source all-rounder: Apache APISIX
• Best enterprise API management: Apigee, Azure API Management, Gravitee
• Best Kubernetes-native option: Traefik, Gloo Gateway, Ambassador, APISIX
• Best for performance/lightweight gateway: NGINX, KrakenD, APISIX
• Best for Java/Spring teams: Spring Cloud Gateway
• Best managed option on AWS: AWS API Gateway

Quick guidance

Choose based on:

• Need for full API management: portals, analytics, auth policies, monetization
• Deployment model: self-hosted vs managed
• Kubernetes support
• Performance and latency
• Plugin/extensibility ecosystem
• Operational complexity

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a comparison table of Kong vs APISIX/Tyk/NGINX/Apigee, or
2. a recommendation based on your stack (Kubernetes, AWS, Java, microservices, etc.).