Google Cloud Endpoints vs Kong

Overview

Google Cloud Endpoints

Stacks36

Followers149

Votes1

Kong

Stacks671

Followers1.5K

Votes139

GitHub Stars42.1K

Forks5.0K

Google Cloud Endpoints vs Kong: What are the differences?

Google Cloud Endpoints is a fully managed API management platform provided by Google Cloud, offering features like authentication, monitoring, and analytics for APIs deployed on Google Cloud Platform. On the other hand, Kong is an open-source API gateway and microservices management platform, known for its flexibility, extensibility, and support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Let's explore the key differences between Google Cloud Endpoints and Kong:

Managed vs Self-Hosted: Google Cloud Endpoints is a fully managed solution provided by Google Cloud. Google takes care of the infrastructure, scaling, and maintenance, allowing developers to focus solely on building their APIs. On the other hand, Kong is a self-hosted solution, which means that developers are responsible for deploying and managing the Kong API gateway on their own infrastructure.
Cloud Platform Integration: Google Cloud Endpoints is tightly integrated with Google Cloud Platform services, making it an excellent choice for projects that are already hosted on Google Cloud. It provides seamless integration with other Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Functions, App Engine, and Cloud Run, enabling easy development and deployment of serverless APIs. Kong, being a self-hosted solution, is more agnostic to the cloud provider and can be deployed on various cloud environments or on-premises.
Extensibility and Plugins: Kong is well-known for its extensibility and plugin support. It offers a wide range of plugins that can be used to add additional functionalities to the API gateway, such as authentication, rate-limiting, logging, and caching. This flexibility allows developers to customize the API gateway according to their specific needs. Google Cloud Endpoints also offers some built-in features, but its extensibility options are limited compared to Kong.
Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Support: Kong is designed to be cloud-agnostic and can be deployed in hybrid environments or across multiple cloud providers. This makes it a suitable choice for organizations with complex infrastructure setups or those looking for vendor independence. On the other hand, Google Cloud Endpoints is more tightly integrated with Google Cloud Platform and may not offer the same level of flexibility for hybrid or multi-cloud setups.
Pricing Model: Google Cloud Endpoints pricing is based on the number of requests made to the API and additional features like authentication and monitoring. Kong, being an open-source solution, is free to use, but organizations need to consider the cost of managing and maintaining the infrastructure on which it is deployed.

In summary, Google Cloud Endpoints is a fully managed platform with tight integration with Google Cloud Platform, making it suitable for projects hosted on Google Cloud. On the other hand, Kong is a flexible and extensible self-hosted API gateway that can be deployed in various environments, making it a good choice for organizations looking for more control and customization options.

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Advice on Google Cloud Endpoints, Kong

Prateek

Mar 14, 2020

Decided

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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Detailed Comparison

Google Cloud Endpoints	Kong
An NGINX-based proxy and distributed architecture give unparalleled performance and scalability. Using an Open API Specification or one of our API frameworks, Cloud Endpoints gives you the tools you need for every phase of API development and provides insight with Google Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, Google Cloud Logging and Cloud Trace.	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.
-	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; IP-restriction: Whitelist or blacklist IPs that can make requests; Authentication: Manage consumer credentials query string and header tokens; Rate-limiting: Block and throttle requests based on IP or authentication; Transformations: Add, remove or manipulate HTTP params and headers on-the-fly; CORS: Enable cross-origin requests to your APIs that would otherwise be blocked; Anything: Need custom functionality? Extend Kong with your own Lua plugins;
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 42.1K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 5.0K
Stacks 36	Stacks 671
Followers 149	Followers 1.5K
Votes 1	Votes 139
Pros & Cons
Pros 1 Android Integration	Pros 37 Easy to maintain 32 Easy to install 26 Flexible 21 Great performance 7 Api blueprint
Integrations
Google App Engine Google Compute Engine Google Kubernetes Engine	Cassandra Docker Prometheus Kubernetes PostgreSQL NGINX Vagrant

What are some alternatives to Google Cloud Endpoints, Kong?

Postman

It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.

Paw

Paw is a full-featured and beautifully designed Mac app that makes interaction with REST services delightful. Either you are an API maker or consumer, Paw helps you build HTTP requests, inspect the server's response and even generate client code.

Karate DSL

Combines API test-automation, mocks and performance-testing into a single, unified framework. The BDD syntax popularized by Cucumber is language-neutral, and easy for even non-programmers. Besides powerful JSON & XML assertions, you can run tests in parallel for speed - which is critical for HTTP API testing.

Appwrite

Appwrite's open-source platform lets you add Auth, DBs, Functions and Storage to your product and build any application at any scale, own your data, and use your preferred coding languages and tools.

Runscope

Keep tabs on all aspects of your API's performance with uptime monitoring, integration testing, logging and real-time monitoring.

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.

Insomnia REST Client

Insomnia is a powerful REST API Client with cookie management, environment variables, code generation, and authentication for Mac, Window, and Linux.

RAML

RESTful API Modeling Language (RAML) makes it easy to manage the whole API lifecycle from design to sharing. It's concise - you only write what you need to define - and reusable. It is machine readable API design that is actually human friendly.

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.

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.

Related Comparisons

Managed vs Self-Hosted: Google Cloud Endpoints is a fully managed solution provided by Google Cloud. Google takes care of the infrastructure, scaling, and maintenance, allowing developers to focus solely on building their APIs. On the other hand, Kong is a self-hosted solution, which means that developers are responsible for deploying and managing the Kong API gateway on their own infrastructure.
Cloud Platform Integration: Google Cloud Endpoints is tightly integrated with Google Cloud Platform services, making it an excellent choice for projects that are already hosted on Google Cloud. It provides seamless integration with other Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Functions, App Engine, and Cloud Run, enabling easy development and deployment of serverless APIs. Kong, being a self-hosted solution, is more agnostic to the cloud provider and can be deployed on various cloud environments or on-premises.
Extensibility and Plugins: Kong is well-known for its extensibility and plugin support. It offers a wide range of plugins that can be used to add additional functionalities to the API gateway, such as authentication, rate-limiting, logging, and caching. This flexibility allows developers to customize the API gateway according to their specific needs. Google Cloud Endpoints also offers some built-in features, but its extensibility options are limited compared to Kong.
Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Support: Kong is designed to be cloud-agnostic and can be deployed in hybrid environments or across multiple cloud providers. This makes it a suitable choice for organizations with complex infrastructure setups or those looking for vendor independence. On the other hand, Google Cloud Endpoints is more tightly integrated with Google Cloud Platform and may not offer the same level of flexibility for hybrid or multi-cloud setups.
Pricing Model: Google Cloud Endpoints pricing is based on the number of requests made to the API and additional features like authentication and monitoring. Kong, being an open-source solution, is free to use, but organizations need to consider the cost of managing and maintaining the infrastructure on which it is deployed.

Google Cloud Endpoints vs Kong