Comprehensive Getting Started Guide

    • Expose your services using Service and Route objects
    • Secure services with key authentication
    • Load balance traffic

    If you have a license, you also have access to Enterprise features. In addition to the basics above, use this guide to:

    • Manage teams by setting up role-based access control (RBAC)
    • Enable the Dev Portal to give your teams a central location to publish, access, and consume services

    Kong Gateway (OSS): an open-source, lightweight API gateway optimized for microservices, delivering unparalleled latency, performance, and scalability. If you just want the basics, this option will work for you.

    Kong Gateway: extends the Kong Gateway with Enterprise features and support. It provides advanced functionality using plugins for security, collaboration, performance at scale, and use of advanced protocols.

    Kong Gateway listens for traffic on its configured proxy port(s) and 8443, by default. It evaluates incoming client API requests and routes them to the appropriate backend APIs. While routing requests and providing responses, policies can be applied via plugins as necessary.

    For example, before routing a request, the client might be required to authenticate. This delivers several benefits, including:

    • The service doesn’t need its own authentication logic since Kong Gateway is handling authentication.
    • The service only receives valid requests and therefore cycles are not wasted processing invalid requests.
    • All requests are logged for central visibility of traffic.

    Note the following before you start using this guide:

    • This guide assumes that you have Kong Gateway (OSS) or Kong Gateway installed and running on the platform of your choice.
    • You can use this guide to get started in production environments, but this guide does not provide all of the necessary configurations and security settings that you would need for a production environment.

    • The examples in this guide all use <admin-hostname> to refer to a Kong Gateway instance’s Admin API URL. Make sure to replace the variable with the actual URL of your Kong Gateway installation.

      To find the URL, check the property in the /etc/kong/kong.conf file.

    • Throughout this guide, you will have the option to configure Kong in a few different ways. Choose your preferred method, if options are available — you don’t have to walk through all of them:
      • Programmatically manage Kong Gateway using its REST-based Admin API
      • Use the Kong Manager GUI (Not available for open-source Gateway)
      • Use decK for declarative configuration (YAML)
    • If you’re running Kong Gateway in Hybrid mode, all tasks contained in this guide take place on the Control Plane.
    • This guide provides Kong Admin API examples in both HTTPie and cURL. If you want to use HTTPie, install it from .