Zuplo
Kong OSS Effectively Abandoned

Kong Community Edition is a dead end. Move to Zuplo.

Kong stopped publishing prebuilt OSS Docker images with version 3.10, eliminated free mode, and shifted all investment to paid Konnect enterprise. If you're running Kong Community Edition, you're on borrowed time. Migrate to Zuplo — a modern, fully managed API gateway with 300+ edge locations, TypeScript policies, and GitOps-native deployment.

The clock is ticking

Kong Community end-of-life timeline

Mar 2025

Kong 3.10 released without prebuilt OSS Docker images. Free mode eliminated. OSS users must build from source.

Already happened
2025

Kong OSS frozen at 3.9.1 with no new community releases. Security patches and bug fixes limited to Enterprise.

Already happened
2026+

Continued divergence between Enterprise and abandoned OSS. Growing security and compatibility risk for community users.

Happening now

The problem

Kong Community Edition is being left behind

Kong Inc. raised $175M at a $2B valuation in 2024 and shifted all investment to Kong Konnect, their enterprise SaaS platform. The open-source Community Edition has been quietly deprioritized. Starting with 3.10, there are no prebuilt Docker images, no free mode, and no roadmap for OSS users.

  • No prebuilt Docker images since Kong 3.10 — you must build from source
  • Free mode removed — running without a license gives expired Enterprise behavior
  • Last OSS release was 3.9.1 — no new features or community releases
  • Security patches and bug fixes are Enterprise-only going forward
  • Complex self-hosted infrastructure (Postgres/Cassandra, Kubernetes)
  • Lua plugin ecosystem with a tiny developer community
  • No official support or SLA for community users

The better path

Don't fight for a dying platform — move to something modern

You chose Kong Community Edition to avoid vendor lock-in and enterprise pricing. But now you're maintaining your own Docker builds, patching security vulnerabilities yourself, and writing Lua plugins nobody else understands. Zuplo gives you everything Kong promised, actually delivered:

  • Fully managed — no servers, databases, or Docker builds to maintain
  • 300+ global edge locations with zero infrastructure management
  • TypeScript policies instead of Lua — use the language your team knows
  • GitOps-native with GitHub integration and preview environments
  • Auto-generated developer portal with self-serve API key management
  • Free tier available — transparent pricing, no enterprise sales calls

Deploy your way

Keep your gateway where your data lives

Many Kong Community customers chose on-premises deployment for data sovereignty and compliance. With Zuplo, you get the same fully managed experience whether you deploy to our global edge or to a dedicated instance in your own cloud.

Managed Edge

Deploy across 300+ global edge locations. Zero infrastructure to manage. Automatic scaling. Requests route to the nearest point of presence worldwide.

Available on all plans

Managed Dedicated

Zuplo runs a dedicated, isolated instance on the cloud provider of your choice: AWS, Azure, GCP, Akamai, Equinix, or others. You choose the regions. Private networking (PrivateLink, Private Service Connect) supported. Still fully managed by Zuplo -- zero infrastructure for you to operate.

Popular with Kong Community customers

Both options are fully managed by Zuplo. Same features, same policies, same APIs, same developer experience. Your code works identically on either deployment model.

How it works

Migrate in days, not months

Because Zuplo uses standard tools and formats (Git, TypeScript, OpenAPI), your existing team can handle the migration without Kong Community specialists or consulting partners.

1

Export your Kong configuration

Use `kong config db_export` or export your declarative YAML config. If you're using DB-less mode, you already have your configuration as YAML files.

2

Import your OpenAPI specs into Zuplo

Import your API definitions to create routes automatically. If you don't have OpenAPI specs, create them from your Kong route and service definitions.

3

Replace Lua plugins with TypeScript policies

Swap Kong's Lua plugins for Zuplo's built-in policy equivalents. Rate limiting, authentication, request transforms, and CORS work out of the box — no custom code needed for common patterns.

4

Set up your developer portal

Zuplo auto-generates a developer portal from your OpenAPI spec with interactive docs and self-serve API key management. No separate portal deployment required.

5

Deploy and cut over

Push to Git, get a preview environment, validate everything works. Update DNS to route traffic through Zuplo's edge network. No Kubernetes clusters to manage.

Policy translation

Your Kong Community policies have Zuplo equivalents

Every common Kong Community plugin maps to a Zuplo built-in policy or standard TypeScript.

Kong Community Policy Zuplo Equivalent
rate-limiting (plugin) Rate Limiting
key-auth (plugin) API Key Authentication
jwt (plugin) JWT Authentication
basic-auth (plugin) Basic Auth
request-transformer (plugin) Set Headers / Set Body
ip-restriction (plugin) IP Restriction
cors (plugin) Built-in CORS
response-ratelimiting (plugin) Quota
proxy-cache (plugin) Caching Policy
Custom Lua plugin Custom Code Policy

Zuplo vs Kong Community: feature comparison

Feature Zuplo Kong Community
Compliance and Audit Readiness
SOC 2 Type II audited annually, third-party penetration test reports under NDA, audit logs across the control plane, GDPR-aligned data processing.
Konnect maintains SOC 2 Type II and a PCI DSS Report on Compliance. Self-hosted Kong inherits compliance from the customer's deployment environment.
Enterprise Identity (SSO + RBAC)
SAML SSO and SCIM provisioning that work directly with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), plus RBAC across organizations, projects, and environments — available on Enterprise. Zuplo's OpenID JWT policy also validates Entra ID tokens at the edge.
Konnect supports SSO and RBAC. Self-hosted Kong identity depends on configured plugins (LDAP, OIDC, etc.) and customer infrastructure.
Managed Dedicated Deployment
Single-tenant managed deployment on AWS, Azure, GCP, Akamai, or any major cloud with up to a 30-minute response SLA on Enterprise. Self-hosted on Kubernetes also supported.
Konnect Dedicated Cloud Gateways available in select regions. Self-hosted runs on customer-operated infrastructure, typically Kubernetes plus PostgreSQL.
AI Gateway and MCP Support
Purpose-built AI Gateway integrated into the platform with model routing, semantic caching, prompt injection protection, budget and token controls. Dedicated MCP Gateway product.
AI plugin suite available since 2024; MCP support added in late 2025. Plugin-based approach with MCP delivered through the AI Gateway as paid enterprise plugins.
Operational Simplicity
Fully managed and auto-scaled across 300+ edge locations. Zero database, cluster, or upgrade operations.
Self-hosted Kong requires PostgreSQL (or DB-less config management), data plane cluster management, and upgrade pathing. Konnect hybrid mode still leaves data-plane operations with you; fully managed gateways cost extra and are capped by plan.
Developer Experience
TypeScript-based programmability with the full npm ecosystem. PR-level preview environments, Git as source of truth.
Lua, Go, Python, or JavaScript plugins with the Kong PDK. cURL-based Admin API and YAML declarative configuration via decK CLI.
Global Edge Performance
V8 isolate runtime across 300+ edge locations with near-zero cold starts. Requests processed at the nearest PoP automatically.
Self-hosted in customer infrastructure or Konnect Cloud regional deployment. Global distribution requires multi-region cluster management.
Developer Portal
Auto-generated from OpenAPI spec with self-serve API key management and interactive docs — included on all plans, including Free. API monetization is available in beta.
Available in Konnect (paid tiers) by publishing uploaded OpenAPI or AsyncAPI specs. Not included in open-source Gateway.
Rate Limiting
Programmable per-user, per-key, and per-API rate limits with TypeScript logic — distributed as a single zone across all edge locations.
Plugin-based rate limiting backed by Redis. Distributed rate limiting requires customer-managed Redis infrastructure.
Gateway Testing
First-party `zuplo test` runner included on every plan. Tests are plain TypeScript with fetch and Node's built-in `node:assert` — nothing extra to install — in your repo next to your routes and policies. The identical suite runs against local dev, the preview deployment of every PR, and production by changing only `--endpoint`.
Kong Gateway runs locally in DB-less mode, and Insomnia's `inso run test` runs JavaScript tests with chai in CI against a chosen environment. But the tests are authored in the Insomnia app and live in its document model — a separate product, not files beside your gateway config — and no automatic per-PR gateway is documented.
GitOps and CI/CD
Git-native — repo is the single source of truth. Every push deploys, every PR gets a live preview environment.
decK CLI for declarative config sync. In database mode, the database is the source of truth; DB-less mode supports Git-based config but trades off the Admin API. No native preview environments.
Authentication
Built-in API key and JWT management with unlimited keys and self-service key management for API consumers.
Plugins for API keys, JWTs, HMAC, LDAP, OpenID Connect — broad protocol coverage with plugin-based composition.

No more self-hosting

A fully managed gateway that actually scales

Kong Community Edition requires you to manage Postgres or Cassandra databases, Kubernetes clusters, Docker builds, and plugin compatibility. Zuplo is fully managed and serverless. Deploy to 300+ edge locations instantly. No infrastructure to maintain, no databases to patch, no Docker images to build from source.

Learn about the developer portal

Pricing model

Request Metering

Charge per call. Grow with your customers.

Simple per-request pricing that scales naturally from a handful to thousands of calls.

Bronze

$0/mo
  • 100 API requests
  • 5K Tokens
  • Discord channel
Popular

Silver

$19/mo
  • 1K API requests
  • 50K Tokens
  • Webhooks
  • Embed widget

Gold

Custom
  • 10K API requests
  • Custom Tokens
  • Bulk discount
  • AI evals

Built-in observability

Real-time analytics without Prometheus pipelines

Kong Community Edition has minimal built-in analytics. Most teams bolt on Prometheus, Grafana, and custom dashboards to get basic visibility. Zuplo includes built-in analytics with every plan: request volume, latency percentiles (P50/P95/P99), error rates, and status code breakdowns. All in real time.

Learn about analytics
API Analytics
Last 24hLIVE
Total Requests2.41M+12.3%
Avg Latency42ms-4.2%
Error Rate0.3%+0.1%
Active Consumers1.2k+3.1%
Request Volumereqs / min
EndpointRequestsP99Errors
GET/api/v2/users
847k12ms0.1%
POST/api/v1/auth
234k89ms0.8%
GET/api/v2/products
156k8ms0.0%
DELETE/api/v1/sessions
23k234ms2.1%

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about migrating from Kong Community to Zuplo.

Stop maintaining a dying gateway.

Start your Kong Community Edition migration today with a free Zuplo account.