Kong Gateway vs NGINX Gateway Fabric
| Kong Gateway | NGINX Gateway Fabric | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | |
| Paid from | Free | Free |
| Platforms | api, Linux, self-hosted, Web | Linux, self-hosted |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment model | hybrid | self-hosted |
| Supported protocols | REST, HTTP, Kafka, WebSockets, gRPC, GraphQL, UDP, TCP, TLS | HTTP, HTTPS, HTTP/2, gRPC, TCP, TLS, UDP |
| Authentication methods | Basic Auth, HMAC, JWT, Key Auth, LDAP, mutual TLS, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, Vault | Basic authentication, JWT, OpenID Connect, external authentication |
| Rate limiting | Yes | Yes |
| Request transformation | Yes | Yes |
| Monthly request limit | 1,000,000 requests/mo | |
| Paid from | 25 /mo | |
| API catalog | Yes | |
| Developer portal | Yes | |
| Lifecycle management | Yes | |
| Access policies | Yes | |
| API analytics | Yes | |
| API product management | Yes | |
| Fallback routing | Yes | |
| Usage analytics | Yes | |
| Self-hosted deployment | Yes | |
| Budget controls | Yes | |
| Virtual API keys | Yes | |
| Proxy architecture | sidecar | |
| mTLS support | Yes | |
| Traffic policies | Yes | |
| Multi-cluster support | Yes | |
| Supported platforms | Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift |
Listed together in Best API Gateway Software