How much does Kong cost?

Kong publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Community up to On request for Enterprise. The entry tier costs nothing.

Does Kong have a free plan?

Yes. The Community tier costs nothing and covers core api gateway, community support.

What is the difference between Community and Enterprise on Kong?

Enterprise costs On request against Free, and adds advanced features, priority support, sla, custom plugins.

Which api management tools can I use without paying?

5 of the 8 api management tools listed alongside Kong have a free tier: Backendless, Asyncapi, AWS API Gateway, Appwrite, Microsoft Azure API Management.

What am I actually paying for with Kong?

The record lists 10 features across 3 areas: core, integrations, platform. In practice it is brought in for running an api gateway in front of internal and public services, publishing and governing apis through a developer portal.

Does Kong charge per user?

The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.

Are these Kong prices current?

They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.

What should I compare Kong against before paying?

The closest api management tools in this directory are Backendless, Asyncapi, Akana, Boomi API Management. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Kong covering price, platforms and features.

API Management · pricing

Kong pricing

Kong publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.

Entry price: Free
Model: Open-source
Tiers: 2
Free tier: Yes

Kong plans, side by side

Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.

Kong pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Community	Free	2	Entry tier
Enterprise	On request	4	Priced on request

What each tier adds

The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.

Community

Free

The entry tier. It covers core api gateway, community support.

Enterprise

On request

Over Community, this tier adds:

Advanced features
Priority support
SLA
Custom plugins

Where Kong stops being free

Community, Free

Core API gateway
Community support

No paid tier on record

Kong lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.

What the product covers

The full Kong feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.

Core

API Gateway
Authentication & Authorization
Rate Limiting

Integrations

Kubernetes
Consul
Eureka
PostgreSQL

Platform

Linux support
Docker support
Kubernetes support

People bring Kong in for running an api gateway in front of internal and public services, publishing and governing apis through a developer portal. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Kong are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in API Management

Too few api management tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.

Kong entry price against other API Management tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
Kong (this page)	Free	open-source	-
Backendless	Free, then $15/month	-	-	vs Kong
Asyncapi	Free	open-source	-	vs Kong
Akana	$2500/monthly	subscription	-	vs Kong
Boomi API Management	$1500/monthly	subscription	-	vs Kong
AWS API Gateway	Free	usage-based	-	vs Kong
Appwrite	Free, then $15/month	-	-	vs Kong

Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Kong badges page.

Before you pay for Kong

Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.

What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.

Kong runs on linux, docker, kubernetes, and is published by Kong Inc. of San Francisco, California, USA. The full record is on the Kong review, and the rest of the category is under best api management tools.

Kong pricing on the vendor's own site

Kong pricing questions

How much does Kong cost?: Kong publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Community up to On request for Enterprise. The entry tier costs nothing.
Does Kong have a free plan?: Yes. The Community tier costs nothing and covers core api gateway, community support.
What is the difference between Community and Enterprise on Kong?: Enterprise costs On request against Free, and adds advanced features, priority support, sla, custom plugins.
Which api management tools can I use without paying?: 5 of the 8 api management tools listed alongside Kong have a free tier: Backendless, Asyncapi, AWS API Gateway, Appwrite, Microsoft Azure API Management.
What am I actually paying for with Kong?: The record lists 10 features across 3 areas: core, integrations, platform. In practice it is brought in for running an api gateway in front of internal and public services, publishing and governing apis through a developer portal.
Does Kong charge per user?: The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
Are these Kong prices current?: They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
What should I compare Kong against before paying?: The closest api management tools in this directory are Backendless, Asyncapi, Akana, Boomi API Management. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Kong covering price, platforms and features.