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APIs · head to head

Kong Gateway vs Soketi

Kong Gateway logo

Kong Gateway

APIs

Open-source and cloud API gateway for managing microservices traffic

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

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.; Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • They diverge on capability: Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Kong Gateway and Soketi differ
AttributeKong GatewaySoketi
Pricing modelfreemiumOpen source, no licence fee
Platformsweb, linux, apiLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryAPIsDeveloper Tools
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 Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

What people use each for

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

Kong Gateway

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

Soketi

  • A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Kong Gateway
  • Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Kong Gateway
  • A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Kong Gateway
  • A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot 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.

Soketi

  • Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
  • There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
  • Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
  • It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

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

Soketi

Free
  • SoketiFree
    • MIT licensed
    • Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
    • No vendor billing

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 Soketi if

  • You need pusher protocol compatibility.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want presence and private channels.
Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is Kong Gateway or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Kong Gateway starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Kong Gateway or Soketi?
Kong Gateway starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Kong Gateway or Soketi run on more platforms?
Kong Gateway runs on web, linux, api. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
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 Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Kong Gateway do that Soketi cannot?
Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Plugin ecosystem, Developer portals, AI Gateway. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

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
Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

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
Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

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
Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

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