Every category where a model named Kong Gateway for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
API gateways	Developer platform	53%	1 of 66	14%	70	endorsed leader	▼−6Since September 2026: 61% → 54%, −6 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
API management	Developer platform	37%	1 of 61	12%	67	endorsed leader	▲+1Since September 2026: 37% → 38%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
API security platforms	Security operations	0%	27 of 93	25%	8	under 10 labels · led by Aikido Security at 12%

Movement

Since September 2026, Kong Gateway held within the floor in all three categories: no change cleared 11 points.

Best category · API gateways · by segment

Small business▲+10Since September 2026: 25% → 35%, +10 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

35%from 25% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 1 pointRank 2 → 1 of 53

Mid-market▼−6Since September 2026: 61% → 54%, −6 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

54%from 61% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 5 pointsRank 1 of 58, unchanged

Enterprise▼−7Since September 2026: 45% → 37%, −7 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

37%from 45% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 4 pointsRank 1 of 59, unchanged

All categories · Mid-market

Category	September 2026	Now	Change	Reading	Rank
API gateways	61%	54%	▼−6Since September 2026: 61% → 54%, −6 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 1 of 66, unchanged
API management	37%	38%	▲+1Since September 2026: 37% → 38%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 1 of 61, unchanged
API security	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 27 of 93, unchanged

Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.

The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions

By model

How each model treated Kong Gateway across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	4	2	2	1	9
GPT-5.4 mini	4	1	3	1	9
Gemini 3.5 Flash	2	4	0	8	14
Perplexity Sonar	4	1	1	0	6
Grok 4.20	8	3	1	1	13
Mistral Small	4	0	4	0	8
DeepSeek V4 Flash	8	0	2	2	12
Llama 4 Maverick	1	0	2	0	3
Qwen 3.7 Flash	3	6	5	1	15
Kimi K2	9	2	0	1	12
GLM 4.7 FlashX	5	3	3	1	12
MiniMax M2.5	2	4	4	1	11
GPT-6 Luna	2	4	1	2	9
Muse Glimmer 30B	4	6	1	1	12

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct77 labels34

Paraphrase68 labels31

Comparative83 labels22not counted in share

Budget-constrained93 labels33

Scale-constrained63 labels17

Negative63 labels4not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative447 labels in all, every segment counted; 115 of the 141 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“For most mid‑market B2B companies, Kong Konnect (or Azure API Management if you’re already in the Microsoft stack) is the best fit.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · API management · direct prompt · first choice

“Kong Gateway is usually the best default choice if you need a general-purpose API gateway with strong extensibility and flexibility.” Perplexity Sonar · API gateways · direct prompt · first choice

“Shortlist: Kong (extensible, scalable), AWS API Gateway (if AWS-heavy), Zuplo (fast DX, edge-native), Tyk (open-source friendly).” Grok 4.20 · API gateways · scale prompt · first choice

“the best API management platforms for mid-market B2B companies are Kong Enterprise, Tyk Enterprise, and Azure API Management” Mistral Small · API management · direct prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Don’t start a new deployment on this version. Kong says it entered end-of-life in July 2026” GPT-6 Luna · API gateways · negative prompt · hard negative

“Requires you to route all traffic through a proxy managed by the platform (e.g., Kong, Tyk). *Be cautious here—as a 500-person company, becoming dependent on one vendor's gateway infrastructure creates technical debt.*” Qwen 3.7 Flash · API security · scale prompt · soft negative

“Warning: While Kong's open-source gateway is excellent, essential features for a 500-person company (RBAC, developer portal, and advanced analytics) require upgrading to their commercial enterprise tier.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · API management · scale prompt · soft negative

“Its flexibility is useful, but self-managed deployments mean more operational responsibility; hybrid setups also require attention to plugin and version compatibility.” GPT-6 Luna · API gateways · comparative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Kong Gateway, over the 427 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Kong Gateway was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Amazon API Gateway335 of 42730Compare →

Apigee295 of 42745Compare →

Azure API Management224 of 4279Compare →

Tyk215 of 42719Compare →

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform176 of 4274Not among the top eight

Zuplo121 of 42748Compare →

Gravitee87 of 4277Compare →

IBM API Connect80 of 4270Not among the top eight

Apache APISIX71 of 4278Compare →

WSO2 API Manager51 of 4274Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Kong Gateway. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 376 of the 427 answers that named Kong Gateway and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

zuplo.com192

integrate.io124

gravitee.io116

dupple.com115

api7.ai110

geekflare.com110

tyk.io96

aws.amazon.com93

konghq.comYour site92

cloud.google.com80

1,036 of the 1,128 domain citations in answers naming Kong Gateway came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

integrate.io/blog/api-management-tools120

dupple.com/learn/best-api-gateways114

geekflare.com/guides/best-api-gateways110

technologyadvice.com/api-management-software74

mgsoftware.nl/en/tools/best-api-gateway-tools64

zuplo.com/learning-center/best-api-gateways-202663

gravitee.io/blog/the-best-api-management-tools-for-your-organization-ppc55

improvado.io/blog/top-api-management-tools53

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where Kong Gateway stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “api gateway”

Position for “api gateways”

–

not in the top ten

Searches for its name, Google: 880 a month (“kong gateway”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 93 a month
Its company's site: konghq.com shared with Kong's other products; the figures are the site's
Organic visits to its site: about 20,236 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 5,158 · 344 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 8,739
Paid Google search: 2 searches its ads show for, about 41 clicks and $376 a month (estimate)

Ads on GoogleDetailLess

105 ads · 97 text, 7 video, 1 image · 62 shown in the last 30 days

First shown October 2021, as Kong, Inc., verified. Ads started 2025-10 to 2026-09: 79 in the year, 26 before.

On Google's pages: 1 2 3 4

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

53%

rank 1 of 66 in API gateways

First choices

115

across its categories

Named in: 427 answers
Its own site cited: in 376 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as Kong Gateway

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Kong Gateway; a claim can dispute any of them.

Kong 53Kong Konnect 21Kong Gateway / Kong Konnect 6Kong Enterprise 5Kong Gateway (OSS) 3Kong (Kong Konnect) 2Kong (Konnect) 2Kong Gateway OSS 2Kong Konnect / Kong Gateway 2Kong (Enterprise) 1Kong (Enterprise/Kong Konnect) 1Kong (Gateway OSS or Konnect) 1Kong (Open Source Edition) 1Kong (Open-Source) 1Kong (with Kong Konnect) 1Kong API Gateway (Community Edition) 1Kong API Gateway (Community/Open-Source Version) 1Kong Enterprise (Kong Konnect) 1Kong Gateway (Open Source / Community Edition) 1Kong Gateway (Open Source) 1Kong Gateway / Konnect 1Kong Gateway Enterprise 1Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.11 1Kong Gateway/Konnect 1

Follow Kong Gateway

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

The company

Kong is the company behind Kong Gateway.

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On record

Company records

Also from Kong: Kong AI, Kong AI Gateway, Kong API Gateway, Kong CE, Kong Community Edition

In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: Dedicated Cloud Gateways are Data Plane nodes that are fully managed by Kong in Konnect.
developer.konghq.com/dedicated-cloud-gateways
For: users who want to load balance traffic across upstream services
developer.konghq.com/gateway/load-balancing
Free plan or trial: 無料トライアル(English) jp.konghq.com/products/kong-gateway
Certifications: FIPS 140-2準拠
Hosting: AWSAzureGCP
Customers named: PEXAAustralia PostMercedes-BenzUnitedHealth Group
Not stated on the pages read: Price, starting price, integrations

What Kong Gateway's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: developer.konghq.com/dedicated-cloud-gateways, jp.konghq.com/products/kong-gateway, developer.konghq.com/gateway/security, developer.konghq.com/gateway/load-balancing, developer.konghq.com/gateway/authentication. A claimed page can correct any of them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Kong Gateway's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Kong Gateway, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Kong Gateway by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Kong Gateway is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Kong Gateway, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.

Badges

Wins only: a badge exists where Kong Gateway is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.

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API gateways

AI models recommend Kong Gateway first in API gateways this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.

Wide · 320 × 104 Website, beside other badges

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-gateways/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-gateways-wide.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API gateways, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="320" height="104"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API gateways standing, where the claim can be checked.

Square · 240 × 240 LinkedIn, slides

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-gateways/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-gateways-square.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API gateways, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="240" height="240"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API gateways standing, where the claim can be checked.

Compact · 200 × 56 Email signature, footer

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-gateways/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-gateways-compact.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API gateways, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="200" height="56"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API gateways standing, where the claim can be checked.

API management

AI models recommend Kong Gateway first in API management this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.

Wide · 320 × 104 Website, beside other badges

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-management/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-management-wide.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API management, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="320" height="104"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API management standing, where the claim can be checked.

Square · 240 × 240 LinkedIn, slides

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-management/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-management-square.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API management, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="240" height="240"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API management standing, where the claim can be checked.

Compact · 200 × 56 Email signature, footer

Show the code

<a href="https://it-ai-index.com/developer/api-management/"><img src="https://it-ai-index.com/badges/2026-10/kong-gateway--api-management-compact.svg" alt="AI models' first choice in API management, October 2026 Edition, IT AI Recommendation Index" width="200" height="56"></a>

Copy the code as it is. The link is part of the badge: it points at the API management standing, where the claim can be checked.

Badges read on light and dark pages. Alt text carries the claim, the category, the edition and the index, so it stays a citation where the image does not load.