--- title: "Postman vs. Kong" description: "Compare Postman and Kong's capabilities across every stage of the API lifecycle, from API design to documentation, testing, and more." url: https://www.postman.com/alternatives/postman-vs-kong/ --- # Postman vs. Kong > Compare Postman and Kong's capabilities across every stage of the API lifecycle, from API design to documentation, testing, and more. ## Postman vs. Kong Learn how Kong's patchwork approach stacks up against Postman's unified platform for collaborative API development. --- ## Why Postman? Postman was built with a unified vision: to serve [every stage of the API lifecycle within a single platform](/platform/). In contrast, Kong has taken a modular approach, assembling its portfolio through a combination of in-house development and acquisition of point solutions. The result is a collection of loosely connected tools that are billed separately and have varying levels of integration. --- ### API client **Postman:** Includes a **full-featured API client** for **REST, SOAP, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSockets** Provides **built-in support for over 10 authentication methods**, including OAuth 2.0 **Insomnia:** Includes a basic API client that lacks support for MQTT and Socket.io ### API design **Postman:** **Supports many API definition formats** **Supports dynamic, customizable mock servers** that can be shared publicly or privately **Insomnia:** Supports OpenAPI and GraphQL definitions only, with limited mocking capabilities **Kong Gateway:** Offers basic mocking capabilities for route-specific responses **Kong Konnect:** Supports OpenAPI, RAML, and AsyncAPI specifications, but lacks dynamic mock servers ### API documentation **Postman:** **Auto-generates interactive documentation** that updates in real time Documentation is extensively customizable Supports public and private documentation **Insomnia:** Auto-generation is more limited; documentation cannot be made public and users cannot add images or videos **Kong Konnect:** Offers customizable, interactive API documentation that can be public or private, but it cannot be auto-generated ### API collaboration **Postman:** Workspaces and collections support **real-time collaboration across the entire API lifecycle** **Includes** in-line comments, activity feeds, and built-in version control Supports collaboration within teams, as well as with **partners and third-party developers** ### API Testing **Postman:** **Supports many testing strategies**, including performance testing and automated testing Offers advanced testing features, like **reusable scripts** and **AI-generated tests** **Supports comprehensive CI/CD testing**, with results sent back to Postman **Insomnia:** Testing features are limited to basic assertions and unit tests ### Integrations and ecosystem **Postman:** **Integrates** with cloud providers, CI/CD pipelines, chat apps, source code repos, and more The Postman API Network is home to **100,000 public APIs and 18,000 companies The VS Code extension** brings Postman's functionality into VS Code **Insomnia:** Includes a vast plugin ecosystem, but no API network or VS Code extension **Kong Gateway:** Limited integrations; no public API network or VS Code extension **Kong Konnect:** Supports API discovery and sharing APIs with internal and external developers, but integrations are limited **Kong Mesh:** Limited integrations; no public API network or VS Code extension ### API monitoring **Postman:** Includes **native API monitoring** with customizable alerts and scheduled tests **Kong Gateway:** Provides runtime observability data for monitoring API traffic and performance, but alerts require additional configuration **Kong Konnect:** Provides runtime observability data for monitoring API traffic and performance, but alerts require additional configuration **Kong Mesh:** Provides built-in traffic metrics, service-level observability, and distributed tracing to monitor API performance within a service mesh ### API security and governance **Postman:** **Includes automated, customizable checks** for security and compliance Offers advanced security features like **secret scanning** and **third-party vault integrations** Provides **reports** and **dashboards** for security and governance **Insomnia:** Lacks automated, customizable checks for security and governance, as well as advanced security features **Kong Gateway:** Includes runtime security features and third-party vault integrations, but lacks secret scanning, reports, and automated checks **Kong Konnect:** Enables consistent enforcement of security policies and API auditing, but lacks secret scanning, reports, and automated checks **Kong Mesh:** Enforces zero-trust security and consistent policy application, but lacks secret scanning, reports, and automated checks ### Pricing --- ## Postman is trusted by over 500,000 companies, 40 million users, and 98% of the Fortune 500 --- ## Pricing Postman's unified platform means transparent and straightforward per user pricing. With the exception of Insomnia, Kong's tools require custom pricing negotiated through each tool's respective sales team. --- ### Estimated annual cost for 3 users **PaddingCell:** 20px 16px **Postman:** Free **Kong:** Custom pricing - contact sales --- ### Estimated annual cost for 25 users **PaddingCell:** 20px 16px **Postman:** $4,200 **Kong:** Custom pricing - contact sales --- ## Industry recognition Don't just take our word for it—learn why G2 recognized Postman as the #1 API platform in 2024. [Read the report](https://www.g2.com/reports/grid-report-for-api-platforms-winter-2024.embed?secure%5Bgated_consumer%5D=f9f1f835-7903-47a3-8974-05efdbdf095c&secure%5Btoken%5D=60230edff61f9b0291585e52c22dbb3c066f725dff74b8df1cca70e5b989b632&tab=grid) --- > APIs are a core strength for PayPal moving billions of dollars globally. Thanks to Postman it's possible to explore and invoke APIs in minutes. Postman creates an extremely seamless experience > Postman is the complete platform that gives us the flexibility. It supports all the different technologies that our teams might use. > The Postman API Platform is highly collaborative. Team workspaces enable our developer community to work effectively when designing and building APIs. > Prior to Postman, a developer learning one of our APIs would need to spend time reading code to figure it out. Today, they can browse and experiment directly in Postman, meaning they are productive much sooner. --- ## Ready to start collaborating on APIs? Start building high-quality APIs on a single platform, today. --- ## Broken collaboration leads to broken APIs. Ninety-three percent of API teams still face collaboration blockers. The 2025 State of the API report reveals how you can unlock the productivity gains that API-first promises, but scattered tooling prevents. [Read the Report](/state-of-api/2025/)