Cybersecurity · head to head
Cosign vs Kong Gateway
Cosign
Cybersecurity
Signs and verifies container images and artifacts, with or without managing keys
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Kong Gateway
APIs
Open-source and cloud API gateway for managing microservices traffic
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Cosign keyless signing inherits every weakness of the identity provider behind it. Sigstore’s own threat model states that if an identity provider is compromised, Sigstore will issue certificates to those identities, so a compromised account produces perfectly valid signatures.; Kong Gateway the free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.
- They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Kong Gateway covers API request routing.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cosign and Kong Gateway actually diverge.
| Attribute | Cosign | Kong Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Open source, no licence fee | freemium |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker | web, linux, api |
| Category | Cybersecurity | APIs |
| Founded | Unknown | 2017 |
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 Cosign
- Keyless signing
- Key and KMS signing
- Registry-native storage
- In-toto attestations
- Offline verification
- Trusted root and signing config
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.
Cosign
- Signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keysnot Kong Gateway
- Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Kong Gateway
- Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Kong Gateway
- Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Kong Gateway
Kong Gateway
- Routing and securing traffic across microservicesnot Cosign
- Publishing internal or external developer portalsnot Cosign
- Managing rate limits and authentication at the API edgenot Cosign
- Gateway-level routing to multiple LLM providersnot Cosign
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Cosign
- Keyless signing inherits every weakness of the identity provider behind it. Sigstore’s own threat model states that if an identity provider is compromised, Sigstore will issue certificates to those identities, so a compromised account produces perfectly valid signatures.
- A signature proves who signed, never whether they should have. The documentation is explicit that Sigstore cannot determine authorisation, so every consumer must write and maintain their own identity and issuer policy or verification means nothing.
- Nothing is enforced without an admission controller. Signing changes what you can prove, not what runs, and the official policy controller has a small maintainer base for a component sitting in a cluster admission path.
- Upgrades break pipelines. Version 3 changed defaults, version 4 is announced as removing legacy functionality and roughly half the command line flags, and two official client libraries still lacked support for the new log format as of mid 2026.
- Signatures do not expire. An artifact signed before a maintainer account was compromised and one signed after are indistinguishable unless somebody is actively monitoring the transparency log, and almost nobody is.
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
Cosign
Free- CosignFree
- Apache-2.0
- Public Sigstore infrastructure free to use
- No usage limits published
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 Cosign if
- You need keyless signing.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
- You also want key and kms signing.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Cosign or Kong Gateway better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cosign 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, Cosign or Kong Gateway?
- Cosign starts at Free and Kong Gateway at Free.
- Does Cosign or Kong Gateway run on more platforms?
- Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Kong Gateway runs on web, linux, api.
- Can I use Cosign for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Cosign best used for?
- Cosign is most often used for signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keys, attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenance, meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifacts, verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registry. Of those, signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keys and attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenance are not what Kong Gateway is typically brought in for.
- What can Cosign do that Kong Gateway cannot?
- Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Plugin ecosystem, Developer portals, AI Gateway.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Cosign: Does Cosign tell me if an image is vulnerable?
No. It has no vulnerability knowledge whatsoever. It can carry an SBOM as a signed attestation but never reads it. Pair it with a scanner.
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.
SourceCosign: Is signing alone enough?
No. Verification is a command somebody runs. Without an admission controller enforcing it, an unsigned image still runs.
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.
SourceCosign: What does a bare cosign verify actually prove?
Very little. Without a pinned certificate identity and OIDC issuer, it accepts a valid signature from any identity at all.
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.
SourceCosign: What is the risk of keyless signing?
Your OIDC provider becomes the root of trust. Compromise of that account yields genuine, verifiable signatures, so account security is the control that matters.
Cosign: Should we expect breaking changes?
Yes. Version 4 is announced to remove roughly half the flags, and a post-quantum migration is named as a further breaking change after that.
Related pages
More on Kong Gateway
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