Kong Inc. is a software company based in San Francisco, originally founded in 2017 as a continuation of the Mashape API marketplace. Today, Kong is known for its cloud-native platform that provides high-performance API management, service connectivity, and microservices orchestration.
At the core of Kong’s offerings is Kong Gateway, a fast, scalable, and lightweight API gateway built on NGINX. It functions as a reverse proxy that manages, secures, and monitors API traffic. The gateway supports hybrid and multi-cloud environments and offers both database-backed and DB-less modes. Its deep integration with Kubernetes through the Kong Ingress Controller and Operator makes it a top choice for containerized applications.
A major strength of Kong is its plugin-based architecture, allowing users to extend functionality with both open-source and custom plugins. These plugins enable features like authentication (JWT, OAuth2, API key, mTLS), traffic control (rate limiting, throttling), caching, transformation, and logging. Enterprises can manage their APIs via Kong Manager, a user-friendly GUI for centralized configuration and analytics.
Kong has recently expanded into AI-driven API solutions with the introduction of the Kong AI Gateway. This includes support for AI-related features like prompt protection, semantic caching, token-aware routing, and compatibility with major AI platforms. The latest versions also improve cost optimization for token usage and enable multi-modal AI interactions.
