Is Kong AI Gateway open source?

Kong Gateway's core is open source. The AI plugins and Konnect are part of Kong's commercial offering.

How is Kong AI Gateway priced?

Konnect is usage-based and Enterprise is a custom contract. Check Kong's pricing page for current terms.

Does it need an existing Kong deployment?

It is built on Kong Gateway, so it fits best where Kong is already in use.

Kong AI Gateway

AI plugins for Kong Gateway, built for teams already running Kong

Enterprise gatewaySelf-hosted, or Kong Konnect (SaaS)Open-source Kong Gateway free · Konnect and Enterprise paidKong Gateway core is open sourceSelf-hosted or Kong Konnect (SaaS)Enterprise contract for advanced features

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What is Kong AI Gateway?

Kong AI Gateway adds AI plugins to Kong Gateway, the widely used API gateway. It standardizes requests to LLM providers and applies Kong's existing authentication and policy tooling.

Pricing is not per token. Konnect is billed on gateways, services and API requests, and Enterprise is a custom contract. Public figures for these come from third-party analyses, so confirm them with Kong before budgeting.

Key features

Core capabilities this platform advertises.

AI proxy plugin that standardizes requests to LLM providers
Runs on Kong Gateway, self-hosted or on Konnect
Enterprise authentication and policy controls

Strengths and tradeoffs

What this tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.

Pros

Fits an existing Kong estate
Open-source Kong Gateway core
Self-hosted or SaaS

Cons

Konnect is usage-based and Enterprise is custom-priced
Less focused on LLM routing than dedicated AI gateways

Plans & pricing

What's included in each plan, and how the tiers compare.

Open source

Kong Gateway with open-source plugins

Konnect

Usage-based

SaaS control plane, billed on usage

Enterprise

Custom

Enterprise support, SSO and compliance features

Fee on tokens: Not per token; priced on gateways, services and API requests

View pricing

Common use cases

Kong AI Gateway suits organizations that already run Kong for APIs and want AI traffic under the same controls.

Enterprises already standardized on Kong for API management
Teams that want AI traffic governed by existing API policies

Kong AI Gateway and Spro

Both are LLM gateways, with different strengths. Here is how they fit.

Where Spro can help

Spro is an AI gateway with LLM routing, guardrails and caching built in, without running Kong.
Use Kong for general API management and Spro for AI model traffic if you want a dedicated AI layer.

Where Kong AI Gateway is stronger

Fits an existing Kong estate
Open-source Kong Gateway core
Self-hosted or SaaS

Read the full Spro vs Kong AI Gateway comparison

Kong AI Gateway integrations

Tools, SDKs and platforms that Kong AI Gateway works with.

Kong Gateway pluginsKong Konnect control plane

Kong AI Gateway FAQs

Common questions about Kong AI Gateway.

0% markup on tokens

See how Spro compares

Spro is an OpenAI-compatible gateway with failover, caching, guardrails and tracing built in, 0% markup on tokens and a free trial, so you can test it with your own traffic before deciding.