Docker Compose vs Kong: What are the differences?

Introduction

Docker Compose and Kong are both tools used in managing and orchestrating containers, but they serve different purposes. Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications, while Kong is an open-source API gateway and service mesh for managing APIs and microservices. Here are the key differences between Docker Compose and Kong:

1. Purpose: Docker Compose is specifically designed for managing and orchestrating containers, allowing developers to define multi-container applications using a YAML file. It focuses on the deployment and scaling of containers and the interconnectivity between them. On the other hand, Kong is an API gateway and service mesh that provides essential features for managing APIs, such as authentication, rate limiting, traffic control, and analytics. It focuses on the interaction layer between clients, APIs, and microservices.

2. Functionality: Docker Compose provides functionality for defining and managing the infrastructure and networking of containerized applications. It allows developers to specify the resources, environment variables, volumes, and dependencies of each container in a unified manner. Kong, on the other hand, offers features specifically tailored for APIs and microservices, such as request/response transformation, authentication and authorization plugins, load balancing, service discovery, and health checking.

3. Portability: Docker Compose provides a portable and reproducible way of defining multi-container applications, allowing them to be easily deployed and run on different environments, including local development machines, staging servers, and production clusters. Kong, on the other hand, is more tightly coupled with its API gateway and service mesh functionality, making it less portable across different environments. It is typically used as a dedicated infrastructure component in the API management layer.

4. Extensibility: Docker Compose can be extended using third-party plugins, allowing developers to add additional functionality or customizations to their containerized applications. These plugins can provide new features, such as service discovery, service mesh functionalities, or monitoring. Kong, on the other hand, provides a plugin system that allows developers to extend its capabilities with custom authentication, authorization, transformation, logging, and traffic control plugins. This enables developers to customize the behavior of the API gateway according to their specific requirements.

5. Scalability: Docker Compose supports horizontal scaling of containers by allowing developers to define the desired number of instances for each container service. It can be used with container orchestration platforms, such as Docker Swarm or Kubernetes, to scale containers across multiple hosts or nodes. Kong, on the other hand, provides built-in load balancing and traffic routing capabilities, allowing it to distribute incoming requests across multiple instances of the API gateway for improved scalability and high availability.

6. Community and Ecosystem: Docker Compose has a large and active community, with extensive documentation, resources, and a wide range of third-party tools and integrations available. It is widely adopted and supported by major container platform providers, such as Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS. Kong also has a vibrant community and ecosystem, with a dedicated marketplace for plugins, integrations with popular DevOps tools, and commercially supported offerings. It is often used in conjunction with other tools and platforms, such as Kubernetes, to provide end-to-end API management solutions.

In summary, Docker Compose is a tool for managing and orchestrating containers, focusing on the deployment and interconnectivity of containerized applications, while Kong is an API gateway and service mesh that provides essential features for managing APIs and microservices, such as authentication, rate limiting, and traffic control.