Alternatives
10 best Kong alternatives
Tools that cover the same task as Kong (api platform), ranked by how completely their pricing, free tier and API access are documented. Checked Oct 4, 2026.
- Kong starts at
- $25/mo
- Free plan
- Free tier unknown
- API
- API available
- 01
Unkey
Unkey is a developer platform for modern APIs that unifies API key management, edge gateways, rate limits, and observability with Git-based deployments. The homepage promises minutes-to-production Docker deploys, preview environments, and a control plane for protecting and routing API traffic globally.
Best for: Teams shipping HTTP APIs who want hosted gateways, key auth, and deployment automation in one vendor stack.
- 02
Bytebase
Bytebase is a database governance platform for teams and AI agents to change, access, and audit databases across environments. It unifies schema migrations, access control with masking and just-in-time access, compliance workflows, and integrations with identity and GitOps tools.
Best for: Platform and data teams that need reviewable database change workflows, access policies, and audit trails.
- 03
Pervaziv AI
Pervaziv AI offers Cortex, a secure AI coding and DevSecOps suite for multi-cloud application development, deployment, and runtime protection. The platform combines coding agents, developer tooling plugins, and AI security reviews with tiered per-user subscriptions.
Best for: Development and security teams adopting AI coding assistants inside JetBrains, VS Code, and GitHub workflows with governance controls.
- 04
Defang
Defang helps engineering teams become AI-native while keeping sovereignty over cloud, models, data, and deployment. Its product line includes Defang Station for running agents, Defang Deploy for shipping to your own cloud accounts, and Defang Forge for building capability, framed around an AI-Native Maturity Model and ROI workflow.
Best for: Engineering leaders and platform teams who want to run and deploy AI agents and apps in AWS accounts they control rather than a black-box vendor runtime.
- 05
Infisical
Infisical is a security platform for developers and AI agents covering secrets management, certificate management, and privileged access. Cloud plans scale by identities with integrations, rotation, SSO, and enterprise controls for larger organizations.
Best for: Engineering teams and agent builders needing centralized secrets, certificates, and privileged access with SSO and audit trails.
- 06
Apoxy
Apoxy is a programmable networking platform for operators and AI agents. It provides tunneled connectivity, Gateway API ingress, static egress IPs, managed NAT, telemetry, and CLRK, an isolated agent runtime that routes agent traffic through Envoy with credential injection and usage-based bandwidth pricing.
Best for: Platform engineers and agent builders who need private connectivity, predictable egress, and a hosted runtime without assembling bespoke networking glue.
- 07
Thingsboard
ThingsBoard is an open-source IoT platform for device management, telemetry ingestion, dashboards, rule chains, and alarms across cloud or on-premises deployments. It offers ThingsBoard Cloud subscriptions, private cloud clusters, and downloadable Professional Edition licences for edge-to-cloud IoT products.
Best for: IoT product teams needing scalable telemetry pipelines, visualization, and multi-tenant device management.
- 08
Authgear
Authgear is an open-source customer and workforce identity platform from Skymakers. It delivers passkeys, passwordless OTP, SAML SSO, adaptive MFA, RBAC, and user management on Authgear Cloud, customer VPC, or self-hosted deployments with data sovereignty options.
Best for: Teams replacing legacy CIAM vendors who need every login method on every tier and portable user exports.
- 09
Aikido Security
Aikido Security is a developer-first application security platform covering dependencies, SAST, secrets, cloud misconfigurations, containers, and AI-assisted autofix across the SDLC. Pricing tiers scale from a free Developer workspace to paid Basic, Pro, and Advanced plans for larger repos and infrastructure coverage.
Best for: Engineering and security teams that want consolidated scanning, autofix, and cloud posture checks tied to Git workflows.
- 10
Cloudanix
Cloudanix is a CNAPP+ platform spanning code, cloud, access, and agentic security on one graph. It offers CSPM, CIEM, workload protection, just-in-time access, coding-agent guardrails, and LLM-native investigation across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes with self-serve Pro SKUs and enterprise options.
Best for: Security and platform engineering teams needing unified cloud posture, runtime protection, JIT access, and guardrails for AI coding agents.
Kong alternatives: common questions
What is the best free alternative to Kong?
Bytebase has an ongoing free plan. Community edition is free forever for individuals and small teams with up to 20 users and 10 database instances. Free plans change, so check the vendor before relying on one.
What is the cheapest Kong alternative?
Unkey has the lowest listed starting price at $5/mo, compared with $25/mo for Kong.
Which Kong alternatives have an API?
Unkey, Bytebase, Infisical, Apoxy, Thingsboard mention API or developer access.