API Gateway Comparison Kong vs Ambassador: Which is the Best Fit for Your Cloud API Needs?
API gateways are an essential component in the modern tech stack. They help secure, manage, and optimize API traffic between clients and servers. Choosing the right API gateway is critical for your project's success. Today, we are going to compare two popular open-source API gateways: Kong and Ambassador.
Kong API Gateway Overview
Kong is an open-source API gateway and microservices management platform. It is built on top of NGINX and provides a range of services, including gateway, load balancing, and plugins. Kong supports multiple protocols, including REST, WebSocket, and GraphQL.
Ambassador API Gateway Overview
Ambassador is another open-source API gateway designed for microservices architectures. It is built on top of Envoy and provides features like authentication, rate-limiting, and monitoring. Ambassador supports APIs from a variety of sources and enables users to map their APIs to different endpoints.
Key Differences Between Kong and Ambassador
Here’s a breakdown of key differences between the two platforms:
| Kong | Ambassador | |
|---|---|---|
| Language Implemented In | Lua | Python |
| Architecture | NGINX | Envoy |
| Network Topology | Built-in | Customizable |
| Access Control | Supported | Supported |
| Load Balancing | Supported | Supported |
| Service Discovery | Supported | Supported |
| Monitoring | Supported | Supported |
| Rate Limiting | Supported via plugins | Supported |
Performance and Scalability
Kong and Ambassador both have performance and scalability features. For Kong, according to tests, the platform can handle up to 57K requests per second for a single node deployment. Ambassador, on the other hand, can process over 260K requests per second for a single node deployment. You can use the provided Kubernetes configuration for scaling in both cases, although Ambassador offers more scalability flexibility, with a container-optimized architecture.
Plugin Availability
Kong and Ambassador both support plugins. Kong has over 60 community, enterprise, and partner plugins, making it a favored option if your project requires a specific plugin. Ambassador offers a more limited set of plugins in comparison, with 21 plugins available at the moment. However, if your use case included Istio inputs, then Ambassador is undoubtedly the stronger choice.
Cost
Both Kong and Ambassador are open-source platforms, which means you can download them and use them for free. However, to get professional support, you can opt for an enterprise edition. In Kong's case, the pricing for the enterprise edition starts at $9,995 per year. Ambassador's structure for commercial support has not been detailed at this time.
Conclusion
To sum up, Kong and Ambassador are similar in many respects. However, there are differences between the two platforms that a user must take into account. Your choice will most likely depend on your project's specific requirements, performance/scalability, and plugin availability.
We hope that this comparison has been helpful, and we encourage you to evaluate both platforms thoroughly before making a decision.