Kong Has a Free API — The Most Popular Open-Source API Gateway

Kong: API Gateway Trusted by 50,000+ Organizations Kong is the most widely adopted open-source API gateway. Rate limiting, auth, caching, load balancing, observability — managed via REST API. Runs on Kubernetes, Docker, VMs. Why Kong Most popular API gateway (100M+ downloads) Plugin ecosystem (100+ plugins) Sub-millisecond latency (built on Nginx/OpenResty) DB-less mode — config as code Kubernetes Ingress Controller The Free API # Add a service curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/services \ -d "name=my-api" \ -d "url=http://backend:8080" # Add a route curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/services/my-api/routes \ -d "paths[]=/api" \ -d "strip_path=true" # Add rate limiting curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/services/my-api/plugins \ -d "name=rate-limiting" \ -d "config.minute=100" \ -d "config.policy=local" # Add key auth curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/services/my-api/plugins \ -d "name=key-auth" # Create consumer + API key curl -X POST http://localhost:8001/consumers \ -d "username=al