Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Kong

593
1.4K
+ 1
138
Traefik

785
1.2K
+ 1
93
Add tool

Kong vs Traefik: What are the differences?

What is Kong? Open Source Microservice & API Management Layer. 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.

What is Traefik? Load Balancer for Microservices. Træfɪk is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer made to deploy microservices with ease. It supports several backends (Docker, Swarm, Mesos/Marathon, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Zookeeper, BoltDB, Rest API, file...) to manage its configuration automatically and dynamically.

Kong and Traefik are primarily classified as "Microservices" and "Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy" tools respectively.

"Easy to maintain" is the primary reason why developers consider Kong over the competitors, whereas "Kubernetes integration" was stated as the key factor in picking Traefik.

Kong and Traefik are both open source tools. Traefik with 23.2K GitHub stars and 2.4K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Kong with 22.4K GitHub stars and 2.75K GitHub forks.

According to the StackShare community, Traefik has a broader approval, being mentioned in 47 company stacks & 20 developers stacks; compared to Kong, which is listed in 50 company stacks and 14 developer stacks.

Decisions about Kong and Traefik
Gabriel Pa

We switched to Traefik so we can use the REST API to dynamically configure subdomains and have the ability to redirect between multiple servers.

We still use nginx with a docker-compose to expose the traffic from our APIs and TCP microservices, but for managing routing to the internet Traefik does a much better job

The biggest win for naologic was the ability to set dynamic configurations without having to restart the server

See more
Prateek Mittal
Fullstack Engineer| Ruby | React JS | gRPC at Ex Bookmyshow | Furlenco | Shopmatic · | 4 upvotes · 267K 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.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Kong
Pros of Traefik
  • 37
    Easy to maintain
  • 32
    Easy to install
  • 26
    Flexible
  • 21
    Great performance
  • 6
    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
  • 20
    Kubernetes integration
  • 18
    Watch service discovery updates
  • 14
    Letsencrypt support
  • 13
    Swarm integration
  • 12
    Several backends
  • 6
    Ready-to-use dashboard
  • 4
    Easy setup
  • 4
    Rancher integration
  • 1
    Mesos integration
  • 1
    Mantl integration

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Kong
Cons of Traefik
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 7
      Not very performant (fast)
    • 7
      Complicated setup

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    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.

    What is Traefik?

    A modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components and configures itself automatically and dynamically.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use Kong?
    What companies use Traefik?
    See which teams inside your own company are using Kong or Traefik.
    Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

    Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

    What tools integrate with Kong?
    What tools integrate with Traefik?

    Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

    Blog Posts

    GitHubPythonNode.js+26
    29
    15819
    What are some alternatives to Kong and Traefik?
    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.
    Amazon API Gateway
    Amazon API Gateway handles all the tasks involved in accepting and processing up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent API calls, including traffic management, authorization and access control, monitoring, and API version management.
    Ambassador
    Map services to arbitrary URLs in a single, declarative YAML file. Configure routes with CORS support, circuit breakers, timeouts, and more. Replace your Kubernetes ingress controller. Route gRPC, WebSockets, or HTTP.
    Azure API Management
    Today's innovative enterprises are adopting API architectures to accelerate growth. Streamline your work across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with a single place for managing all your APIs.
    Tyk Cloud
    Tyk is a leading Open Source API Gateway and Management Platform, featuring an API gateway, analytics, developer portal and dashboard. We power billions of transactions for thousands of innovative organisations.
    See all alternatives