IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Developer platform › API gateways › Small business › September 2026 Edition

API gateways for small business buyers

Asked as “API gateway”, and as “API gateway and traffic management tool”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 56 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Zuplo
Clear leader
43% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 67 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessZuplo43%Clear leaderThis pageMid-marketKong Gateway61%Clear leaderStanding →EnterpriseKong Gateway45%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Zuplo43%0%49endorsed leader
02Kong Gateway25%41%76criticized challenger
03Amazon API Gateway12%21%63accepted challenger
04Tyk7%2%55accepted challenger
05Cloudflare API Gateway4%0%11accepted challenger
06Apache APISIX4%7%14accepted challenger
07Azure API Management2%56%18criticized challenger
08Apigee2%81%26criticized challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10NGINX0%13%15accepted challenger
09Traefik0%6%16accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Kong Gateway vs ZuploKong Gateway vs TykZuplo vs Tyk

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Zuplo43%
02Kong Gateway25%
03Amazon API Gateway12%
04Tyk7%
05Cloudflare API Gateway4%
06Apache APISIX4%
07Azure API Management2%
08Apigee2%
09Traefik0%
10NGINX0%

02What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Kong Gateway
41%
31 of 76 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Avoid heavy self-hosted solutions like Kong unless you specifically need the plugin ecosystem” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Apigee
81%
21 of 26 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 14 hard negative
“Apigee is one API gateway that is recommended to be avoided due to its outdated technology and lack of fit for modern cloud-native architectures” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt
Azure API Management
56%
10 of 18 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“six-figure price tags and extreme administrative complexity. Overkill for a small team.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, direct prompt
Amazon API Gateway
21%
13 of 63 labels negative · 8 of 12 models
“**AWS API Gateway** is a common choice, but small businesses should watch request volume, data transfer, caching, WebSocket connection time” GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

62 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 836 links across 169 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

zuplo.com
vendor site · Zuplo45 answers · 107 citations · 11 models
dupple.com
32 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
toolradar.com
32 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
knoxcall.com
vendor site · KnoxCall30 answers · 30 citations · 9 models
reddit.com
28 answers · 42 citations · 9 models
geekflare.com
23 answers · 23 citations · 8 models
api7.ai
22 answers · 27 citations · 9 models
gravitee.io
vendor site · Gravitee18 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
digitalapi.ai
vendor site · DigitalAPI17 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
dev.to
15 answers · 17 citations · 9 models
sourceforge.net
vendor site · SourceForge15 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
konghq.com
15 answers · 16 citations · 6 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

dupple.com/learn/best-api-gateways
32 answers · 10 models
toolradar.com/guides/best-api-gateways
32 answers · 10 models
knoxcall.com/blog/article/best-api-gateways-small-teams-2026
30 answers · 9 models
zuplo.com/learning-center/best-api-gateways-startups-2026
25 answers · 10 models
geekflare.com/guides/best-api-gateways
23 answers · 8 models
reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/1s36hm2/best_api_management_tools_for_smal…
21 answers · 7 models
zuplo.com/learning-center/best-api-gateways-2026
20 answers · 10 models
zuplo.com/learning-center/api-gateway-pricing-comparison-2026
17 answers · 8 models
api7.ai/top-11-api-gateways-platforms-compared
14 answers · 9 models
trakkr.ai/ai-recommends/api-management/small-business
12 answers · 7 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best API gateway for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which API gateway and traffic management tool would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top API gateways for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best API gateway for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a API gateway. What should we look at?”Negative“Which API gateways should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Amazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, TykZuploChanged
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Merge
Zuplo
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, NGINX
Zuplo
Five alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Apache APISIX, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway
no first choiceagainst: Amazon API Gateway
GPT-5.4 miniZuplo
One alternativeAmazon API Gateway
against: Apigee, Kong GatewayAzure API ManagementChanged
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway
Amazon API Gateway
Three alternativesCloudflare API Gateway, Kong Gateway, Tyk
against: ApigeeKong Gateway
Three alternativesCloudflare API Gateway, Cloudflare Workers, NGINX
against: Amazon API Gatewayno first choiceagainst: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management
Gemini 3.5 FlashZuplo
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Gravitee, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayZuploHeld
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayZuplo
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, KrakenD, Tyk
Zuplo
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, KrakenD, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayZuplo
Four alternativesAWS API Gateway / GCP API Gateway, Kong Gateway, Tyk, Unkey
against: Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint Platformagainst: Amazon API Gateway, Ambassador, Apache APISIX, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Perplexity SonarZuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayAmazon API Gateway, ZuploChanged
Two alternativesPostman, Tyk
Zuplo
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, NGINX, Traefik, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayAmazon API Gateway, Zuplo
One alternativeTyk
against: Kong Gatewayno first choiceagainst: Apigee, Axway, Azure API Management, Boomi, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, SAP API Management
Grok 4.1 FastZuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway
Kong GatewayChanged
Three alternativesApache APISIX, Tyk, Zuplo
against: Amazon API Gatewayno first choice
One alternativeTraefik
Kong Gateway
Three alternativesApache APISIX, Tyk, Zuplo
against: Amazon API GatewayKong Gateway
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Cloudflare Gateway, Tyk
against: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway
Mistral SmallZuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayApigee, Kong GatewayChanged
One alternativeTyk
Zuplo
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Gravitee, Kong Gateway, Tyk
Zuplo
One alternativeTyk
against: Kong Gatewayno first choiceagainst: Google Cloud API Gateway
DeepSeek V4 FlashZuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint PlatformTyk, ZuploChanged
One alternativeAmazon API Gateway
against: Apigee, Kong GatewayZuplo
Five alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Cloudflare API Gateway, NGINX, Traefik, Tyk
against: Apigee, Kong Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint PlatformApache APISIX, Kong Gateway
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Cloudflare API Gateway, KrakenD
against: Apigee, Gravitee, Kong GatewayAmazon API Gateway, Zuplo
Two alternativesTraefik, Tyk
against: Apigee, Kong Gatewayagainst: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway
Llama 4 MaverickPostman
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk, Zuplo
against: Kong Gatewayno first choiceChangedTyk, Zuplo
One alternativeAmazon API Gateway
against: Kong Gatewayno first choice
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk, Zuplo
against: Kong Gatewayno first choiceagainst: Apigee
Qwen 3.7 FlashKong Gateway
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Azure API Management, Postman, Tyk
ZuploChanged
One alternativeTyk
against: Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Cognito, Kong GatewayZuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayCloudflare API Gateway, Zuplo
One alternativeTyk
against: Amazon API Gateway, Azure API Management, Kong GatewayKong Gateway, Tyk
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Apache APISIX, Envoy
against: MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, NGINXagainst: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway, NGINX, Traefik
Kimi K2Cloudflare API Gateway, Zuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway
ZuploChanged
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Cloudflare API Gateway, Kong Gateway
against: Kong Gateway, TykTraefik, Zuplo
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayAmazon API Gateway, Zuplo
Two alternativesCloudflare API Gateway, Tyk
against: Kong GatewayAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, Zuplo
Four alternativesCloudflare API Gateway, Gravitee, Traefik, Tyk
against: Apigee, MuleSoft Anypoint Platformagainst: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway
GLM 4.7 FlashXKong Gateway
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Apache APISIX, Zuplo
against: ApigeeKong GatewayHeld
Two alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Apache APISIX
against: ApigeeZuplo
Three alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, Tyk
Zuplo
Five alternativesCloudflare API Gateway, Kong Gateway, KrakenD, Traefik, Tyk
no first choice
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Apache APISIX, Kong Gateway, Zuplo
against: Amazon API Gateway, Apigee, Azure API Management, Kong Gateway, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
MiniMax M2.5Apache APISIX, Kong Gateway
Three alternativesGravitee, NGINX, Traefik
Amazon API GatewayChanged
Seven alternativesAWS Application Load Balancer, Azure API Management, Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway, Express Gateway, Kong Gateway, NGINX, Tyk
Zuplo
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Kong Gateway, NGINX, Tyk
Tyk, Zuplo
One alternativeAmazon API Gateway
against: Kong GatewayKong Gateway
Four alternativesAmazon API Gateway, Cloudflare Workers/Workers KV, Traefik, Tyk
against: Apigee, Kong Gateway
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:28no06 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:23yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:23yes1332 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:04yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 14:00yes4017 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:43yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 14:05yes2641 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:36yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:51no037 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:36yes1341 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:35yes22157 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:29yes525 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:21yes178 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:49yes37 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:17yes525 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:14yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:01yes189 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:16no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:03yes1923 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:58yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:53yes15111 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:41yes2739 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:26yes20105 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:12no073 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:12yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:32yes78 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:01yes1527 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:38yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 14:11yes4620 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:46yes1212 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:46yes815 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 12:40yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:32yes535 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:34yes1039 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:01yes22120 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:55yes522 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:55yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:17no04 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:15yes1026 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 14:02yes203 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:29yes2717 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:52yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:11yes1011 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:40yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:53yes2043 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:16yes1527 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:11yes1439 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:32yes1550 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:11no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:29no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:44yes1324 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:47yes2016 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:47no05 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:51no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:27yes1924 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:10yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 14:05no039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:18yes1056 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:14yes14108 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:24yes522 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:48yes198 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:53yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:49yes1724 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:45yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:12yes4018 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:52yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:10yes1919 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:27yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:52yes1563 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:23yes2535 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:30yes2981 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:55yes927 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Kong read as Kong Gateway
Kong (Community Edition) read as Kong Gateway
Kong (Kong Gateway & Kong Konnect) read as Kong Gateway
Kong (Konnect) read as Kong Gateway
Kong (OSS or Konnect) read as Kong Gateway
Kong (Open Source) read as Kong Gateway
Kong Cloud read as Kong Gateway
Kong Enterprise read as Kong Gateway
MuleSoft read as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
Unresolved, counted raw
AWS ALB
AWS API Gateway / GCP API Gateway
AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB)
AWS SAM
Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway
Cloudflare Workers/Workers KV
Envoy-based solutions
Otoroshi
SAP API Management
Unkey
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in developer platform

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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