Softwr

Documentation · head to head

BookStack vs Kong Gateway

BookStack logo

BookStack

Documentation

Self-hosted documentation wiki with a fixed shelf, book, chapter and page structure

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Kong Gateway logo

Kong Gateway

APIs

Open-source and cloud API gateway for managing microservices traffic

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: BookStack there is no vendor-hosted option at all, so you own the server, TLS certificates, database backups and upgrades, or you pay a third-party host that has no support relationship with the project and no ability to fix a bug.; Kong Gateway the free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.
  • They diverge on capability: BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Kong Gateway covers API request routing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BookStack and Kong Gateway actually diverge.

Attributes where BookStack and Kong Gateway differ
AttributeBookStackKong Gateway
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feefreemium
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, Dockerweb, linux, api
CategoryDocumentationAPIs
FoundedUnknown2017

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BookStack

  • Shelves, books, chapters, pages
  • Dual editors
  • Granular permissions
  • Full text search
  • Page revisions
  • REST API
  • External authentication
  • Export

Only in Kong Gateway

  • API request routing
  • Plugin ecosystem
  • Developer portals
  • AI Gateway
  • Analytics and observability
  • SSO and audit logs

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BookStack

  • Running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external SaaSnot Kong Gateway
  • Documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki producesnot Kong Gateway
  • Replacing a Confluence licence for a team that needs pages, permissions and search but none of the surrounding suitenot Kong Gateway
  • Publishing customer-facing manuals from the same instance as internal documentation using per-book permissionsnot Kong Gateway

Kong Gateway

  • Routing and securing traffic across microservicesnot BookStack
  • Publishing internal or external developer portalsnot BookStack
  • Managing rate limits and authentication at the API edgenot BookStack
  • Gateway-level routing to multiple LLM providersnot BookStack

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BookStack

  • There is no vendor-hosted option at all, so you own the server, TLS certificates, database backups and upgrades, or you pay a third-party host that has no support relationship with the project and no ability to fix a bug.
  • The shelf, book, chapter, page hierarchy is fixed at four levels and cannot be reshaped, so migrating a deeply nested Confluence or MediaWiki space means flattening content by hand and losing the original structure.
  • It requires PHP and MySQL or MariaDB, which is a stack many engineering teams no longer run, so adopting it usually means introducing a database and runtime nobody else in the organisation maintains.
  • Development is concentrated on a single maintainer, which makes the bus factor a legitimate procurement question for anything the organisation intends to depend on for a decade.
  • Content lives in the database rather than in files under version control, so there is no docs-as-code workflow, no review by pull request and no branch per release.
  • Export is per page, chapter or book, so moving a large instance to another platform means writing a script against the REST API rather than copying a directory of Markdown.

Kong Gateway

  • The free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.
  • Plus tier caps API requests at 1M/month before incurring per-million overage charges.
  • Enterprise pricing is custom and not published, making budgeting harder without sales contact.
  • Configuration and plugin management can require significant operational expertise to run at scale.

Pricing, plan by plan

BookStack

Free
  • BookStackFree
    • MIT licence with no paid edition
    • All features included, no seat limits
    • Self-hosted on your own infrastructure

Kong Gateway

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • 30-day enterprise functionality trial
    • Unlimited gateways
    • 30-day analytics retention
  • Plus$undefined/month
    • Up to 5 serverless, 2 hybrid, 2 dedicated cloud gateways
    • 1M API requests/month included
    • Up to 2 developer portals
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Unlimited hybrid and dedicated cloud gateways
    • Unlimited developer portals
    • SSO and audit logs

Which should you pick?

Choose BookStack if

  • You need shelves, books, chapters, pages.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want dual editors.
BookStack review

Choose Kong Gateway if

  • You need api request routing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, linux, api.
  • You also want plugin ecosystem.
Kong Gateway review

Questions people ask

Is BookStack or Kong Gateway better?
Neither clearly leads. BookStack starts at Free and Kong Gateway at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BookStack or Kong Gateway?
BookStack starts at Free and Kong Gateway at Free.
Does BookStack or Kong Gateway run on more platforms?
BookStack runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Kong Gateway runs on web, linux, api.
Can I use BookStack for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is BookStack best used for?
BookStack is most often used for running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external saas, documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki produces, replacing a confluence licence for a team that needs pages, permissions and search but none of the surrounding suite, publishing customer-facing manuals from the same instance as internal documentation using per-book permissions. Of those, running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external saas and documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki produces are not what Kong Gateway is typically brought in for.
What can BookStack do that Kong Gateway cannot?
BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Dual editors, Granular permissions, Full text search. Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Plugin ecosystem, Developer portals, AI Gateway.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BookStack: Is there a paid or hosted version?

No. BookStack is MIT-licensed with no commercial edition and no official hosted service. Third-party hosts exist but are unaffiliated with the project.

Kong Gateway: Is Kong Gateway free?

Kong's core gateway is open source and free to self-host. Kong Konnect, the managed cloud platform, offers a 30-day free trial before moving to paid Plus or custom Enterprise pricing.

Source
BookStack: Can I nest pages more deeply?

No. Four levels is the design, not a limitation waiting to be fixed, and content that needs deeper nesting has to be restructured.

Kong Gateway: How is usage metered on the Plus plan?

The Plus plan includes 1M API requests per month, with additional usage billed at $200 per extra 1 million requests up to a 10M/month cap, plus per-gateway and per-LLM-model charges.

Source
BookStack: Does it support single sign-on?

Yes, through LDAP, SAML2 or OpenID Connect, with group to role mapping, and none of it is gated behind a paid tier because there is no paid tier.

Kong Gateway: What support is included?

Plus includes email support with a 2-business-day SLA, while Enterprise adds dedicated success managers and professional services.

Source
BookStack: How hard is it to migrate content in?

Straightforward for flat content through the REST API, awkward for deeply nested wikis, because the structure has to be collapsed to fit.

Share

Related pages

More on BookStack

More on Kong Gateway

Keep looking

Other head to heads