The document compares the API gateways Kong and Traefik. Kong is easy to install and maintain, has great performance, and flexible integration with Kubernetes ingress. However, it lacks an official dashboard and plugins must be built in Lua. Traefik is very simple to configure and use and has strong integration with many cloud systems. However, it has less documentation and lacks some advanced features of Kong. Overall, both tools are suitable API gateways but Kong may be better for more complex needs while Traefik is simpler to use and get started with.

1. API Gateway
Study Climatempo
Kong & Traefik

2. Kong

3. Kong API Gateway
➔ Easy install
➔ Easy to maintain (Plugins)
➔ Great performance
➔ Flexible
➔ Integration K8s - Ingress

4. Image from Kong github.

5. Architectures compatible with Kong

6. Kong Workflow from KongHQ

7. Why choose Kong ?
★ Servless
★ Good docs
★ Great performance
★ Native integration with Nginx ( Multiples instances of Kong )
★ Easy integration (k8s - Nginx - PgSQL)
★ Several plugins available
★ Kong DataStore - Default integration ( Cassandra and PGSQL)
★ Horizontal Scalability - (Datastore fail)
★ NEW Ingress with k8s - https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller

8. Why NOT choose Kong
➢ Not have a official dashboard
➢ Necessary build own plugin in Lua
➢ DataStore low scalability - needs replicate instance for high
availability
➢ The support to TCP gives some issues registered in Github
➢ Plugins for Redis storage is not official. Cassandra&PGSQL

9. Traefik

10. Traefik API Gateway
➔ Very simple!
➔ Ingress with K8S ( More simplest than Kong )
➔ Easy to configure
➔ Painless solution - ( Uses with Envoy/Nginx )
➔ Can be used with another Gateway
➔ It’s more than LoadBalancer!
➔ Not only HTTP!

11. Traefik example

12. WEB UI Traefik Official

13. Workflow Traefik

14. Only to add presentation amount

15. Example usage with multi protocol

16. Why choose Traefik ?
★ Simple and objective
★ Great Web UI
★ Integration with most cloud systems
★ Nginx Plus
★ Full Support TCP!
★ Fast - ( No more than Nginx obviously )

17. Why NOT choose Traefik ?
➢ If you needs more than Load Balancer, Logs, ACL,
Authorization
➢ The Docs is small
➢ If you needs API Management support
➢ KV Consul is not REDIS

18. Comparison

19. Github

20. Google Trends - Interest Over Time

21. Traefik vs Nginx
Traefik can serve 28392 requests/sec
Nginx can serve 33591 requests/sec
which gives a ratio of 85%
TL;DR: Traefik is just 15% slower than Nginx
( Young project )

22. Fonts:
❖ https://blog.getambassador.io/selecting-an-api-gateway-for-continuous-delivery-of-cloud-native-applications-8ba05fa1c74
❖ https://medium.com/@bouwe.ceunen/why-i-switched-kong-for-traefik-b997b9948878
❖ https://stackshare.io/stackups/kong-vs-traefik
❖ https://www.bbva.com/en/api-gateways-kong-vs-tyk/
❖ https://blog.containo.us/back-to-traefik-2-0-2f9aa17be305
❖ https://docs.traefik.io/v1.5/benchmarks/
❖ https://tech.xogrp.com/why-we-chose-kong-2ac399a4b259
❖ https://www.nginx.com/blog/introducing-nginx-api-management-api-gateways-with-nginx-controller/
❖ https://github.com/containous/traefik/issues/3749