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Express Gateway vs Kong: What are the differences?
What is Express Gateway? An open source API gateway for microservices built on Express.js. 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? 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.
Express Gateway and Kong can be primarily classified as "Microservices" tools.
Some of the features offered by Express Gateway are:
- Authentication
- Authorization
- API Management
On the other hand, Kong provides the following key features:
- Logging: Log requests and responses to your system over TCP, UDP or to disk
- OAuth2.0: Add easily an OAuth2.0 authentication to your APIs
- Monitoring: Live monitoring provides key load and performance server metrics
"Microservices, Body manipulation" is the top reason why over 3 developers like Express Gateway, while over 28 developers mention "Easy to maintain" as the leading cause for choosing Kong.
Kong is an open source tool with 22.4K GitHub stars and 2.75K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Kong's open source repository on GitHub.
Checkr, Policygenius, and Cuemby are some of the popular companies that use Kong, whereas Express Gateway is used by Netflix, Dell, and TUI Group. Kong has a broader approval, being mentioned in 50 company stacks & 15 developers stacks; compared to Express Gateway, which is listed in 11 company stacks and 3 developer stacks.
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.
Pros of Express Gateway
- Microservices, Body manipulation4
- Amazing api gwy. Easy and powerful configuration3
- Custom Plugins3
- Development workflow integration2
Pros of Kong
- Easy to maintain36
- Easy to install31
- Flexible24
- Great performance20
- Api blueprint5
- Custom Plugins4
- Kubernetes-native3
- Agnostic2
- Load balancing1
- Security1
- Documentation is clear1
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Cons of Express Gateway
- Deprecated2
Cons of Kong
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What is Express Gateway?
What is Kong?
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