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APIs · head to head

Kong Gateway vs Longhorn

Kong Gateway logo

Kong Gateway

APIs

Open-source and cloud API gateway for managing microservices traffic

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Kong Gateway the free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.; Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • They diverge on capability: Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Kong Gateway and Longhorn differ
AttributeKong GatewayLonghorn
Pricing modelfreemiumOpen source, no licence fee
Platformsweb, linux, apiLinux, Kubernetes
CategoryAPIsCloud
Founded2017Unknown

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 Kong Gateway

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

Only in Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

What people use each for

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

Kong Gateway

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

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Kong Gateway
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Kong Gateway
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Kong Gateway
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot Kong Gateway

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Questions people ask

Is Kong Gateway or Longhorn better?
Neither clearly leads. Kong Gateway starts at Free and Longhorn at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Kong Gateway or Longhorn?
Kong Gateway starts at Free and Longhorn at Free.
Does Kong Gateway or Longhorn run on more platforms?
Kong Gateway runs on web, linux, api. Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes.
Can I use Kong Gateway for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Kong Gateway best used for?
Kong Gateway is most often used for routing and securing traffic across microservices, publishing internal or external developer portals, managing rate limits and authentication at the api edge, gateway-level routing to multiple llm providers. Of those, routing and securing traffic across microservices and publishing internal or external developer portals are not what Longhorn is typically brought in for.
What can Kong Gateway do that Longhorn cannot?
Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Plugin ecosystem, Developer portals, AI Gateway. Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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
Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

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
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

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
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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