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Express Gateway vs Kong: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Express Gateway and Kong

Introduction

Express Gateway and Kong are two popular API gateway solutions that help in managing, securing, and scaling APIs. While both provide similar functionalities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Scalability: In terms of scalability, Express Gateway is designed to be lightweight and highly performant, making it suitable for smaller applications or scenarios where lower resource consumption is preferred. On the other hand, Kong is built on top of the Nginx web server, which provides robust performance and scalability, making it a better choice for larger-scale deployments.

  2. Plugin Ecosystem: Kong boasts a vast plugin ecosystem with a large number of community-driven plugins available, allowing users to easily extend its functionalities and integrate with various third-party services. Express Gateway, although it supports plugins, has a more limited plugin ecosystem compared to Kong, which might restrict the available options for customization and integration.

  3. Architecture: Express Gateway follows a microservices architecture where different components of the gateway are decoupled and can be scaled independently. This offers flexibility and modularity in managing and scaling individual components. On the other hand, Kong follows a monolithic architecture, where all the components are tightly integrated within a single application. While this simplifies the deployment process, it might limit the flexibility in customizing and choosing specific components.

  4. Ease of Use: Express Gateway aims to provide a developer-friendly and intuitive user interface, making it easier for developers to set up and configure gateway functionalities. Kong, although it offers a rich set of features, might have a steeper learning curve and require more technical expertise to fully utilize its capabilities.

  5. Community Support: Kong has a larger and more active community compared to Express Gateway, which translates to a stronger support system in terms of documentation, community forums, and third-party resources. This can be beneficial when seeking help, finding solutions to problems, or staying up-to-date with the latest developments.

  6. Commercial Support: Kong offers a commercial variant called Kong Enterprise, which comes with additional features, support, and consultancy services. Express Gateway, being an open-source project, does not have a commercial offering. This might be a crucial factor for organizations requiring enterprise-level support or advanced features beyond the scope of the open-source version.

In summary, while both Express Gateway and Kong serve as effective API gateway solutions, Kong offers greater scalability, a larger plugin ecosystem, and benefits from an active community and commercial support options. Express Gateway, on the other hand, focuses on being lightweight, developer-friendly, and provides flexibility in its microservices architecture. The choice between the two ultimately depends on the specific needs and requirements of the project.

Decisions about Express Gateway and Kong
Prateek Mittal
Fullstack Engineer| Ruby | React JS | gRPC at Ex Bookmyshow | Furlenco | Shopmatic · | 4 upvotes · 287.3K views

Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.

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Pros of Express Gateway
Pros of Kong
  • 4
    Microservices, Body manipulation
  • 3
    Amazing api gwy. Easy and powerful configuration
  • 3
    Custom Plugins
  • 37
    Easy to maintain
  • 32
    Easy to install
  • 26
    Flexible
  • 21
    Great performance
  • 7
    Api blueprint
  • 4
    Custom Plugins
  • 3
    Kubernetes-native
  • 2
    Security
  • 2
    Has a good plugin infrastructure
  • 2
    Agnostic
  • 1
    Load balancing
  • 1
    Documentation is clear
  • 1
    Very customizable

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Cons of Express Gateway
Cons of Kong
  • 2
    Deprecated
    Be the first to leave a con

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Express Gateway?

    A cloud-native microservices gateway completely configurable and extensible through JavaScript/Node.js built for ALL platforms and languages. Enterprise features are FREE thanks to the power of 3K+ ExpressJS battle hardened modules.

    What is Kong?

    Kong is a scalable, open source API Layer (also known as an API Gateway, or API Middleware). Kong controls layer 4 and 7 traffic and is extended through Plugins, which provide extra functionality and services beyond the core platform.

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    What are some alternatives to Express Gateway and Kong?
    Apigee
    API management, design, analytics, and security are at the heart of modern digital architecture. The Apigee intelligent API platform is a complete solution for moving business to the digital world.
    LoopBack
    A highly-extensible, open-source Node.js framework that enables you to create dynamic end-to-end REST APIs with little or no coding. Connect to multiple data sources, write business logic in Node.js, glue on top of your existing services and data, connect using JS, iOS & Android SDKs.
    NGINX
    nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.
    Zuul
    It is the front door for all requests from devices and websites to the backend of the Netflix streaming application. As an edge service application, It is built to enable dynamic routing, monitoring, resiliency, and security. Routing is an integral part of a microservice architecture.
    Istio
    Istio is an open platform for providing a uniform way to integrate microservices, manage traffic flow across microservices, enforce policies and aggregate telemetry data. Istio's control plane provides an abstraction layer over the underlying cluster management platform, such as Kubernetes, Mesos, etc.
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