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IBM watsonx Orchestrate vs Kong AI Gateway
IBM watsonx Orchestrate
Agent management platform to build, deploy, orchestrate, and govern AI agents
Kong AI Gateway
Gateway that governs LLM, MCP, and agent-to-agent traffic
Short answer
IBM watsonx Orchestrate is a platform to build, deploy, and govern AI agents; Kong AI Gateway is a gateway for LLM, MCP, and agent-to-agent (A2A) traffic.Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5, Source 6 Orchestrate runs agents built in it and can add outside agents by URL; Kong proxies calls to agents registered as upstream URLs.Source 3, Source 7, Source 8, Source 9
Where each one sits
Six layers of running AI agents at a company, and what each product’s own public sources say it covers.
These aren’t the same kind of product
IBM watsonx Orchestrate
Kong AI Gateway
- Build agents: Not publicly documented
- Host and run agents: Not publicly documented
- Agents across organizations: Not publicly documented
At a glance
What each one is
IBM watsonx Orchestrate
IBM describes watsonx Orchestrate as an agent management platform to build, deploy, orchestrate, manage, and govern AI agents.Source 1 IBM says its Agentic Control Plane, introduced on AWS and IBM Cloud in June 2026, is a centralized layer to observe and govern agents.Source 12, Source 19
The differences that matter
Where agents run
IBM watsonx OrchestrateAgents built with the Agent Development Kit run on watsonx Orchestrate; agents on third-party platforms are added by the URL of a running, accessible endpoint.Source 3, Source 8
Kong AI GatewayKong proxies calls to each agent at its own URL; in 2.x, data plane nodes you run forward the allowed traffic.Source 6, Source 9
Behind a firewall, you allowlist IBM’s outbound IPs or, on IBM Cloud, set up a Satellite TLS tunnel; Kong’s control plane is never in the path of user data traffic.Source 6, Source 24, Source 25
Keeping track of agents
IBM watsonx OrchestrateIBM says its catalog holds partner agents and its AI Gateway (preview) can find agents in AgentCore, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, or Azure AI Foundry.Source 20, Source 26, Source 27, Source 28, Source 29
Kong AI GatewayIn 2.x, each AI Agent entity is scoped to one gateway instance; Konnect Catalog’s agent inventory is in beta, not for production use.Source 6, Source 9, Source 14
Outside systems can list a tenant’s live agents through IBM’s A2A discovery endpoint; Kong rewrites agent-card URLs so A2A clients discover the gateway instead of the agent.Source 9, Source 10
Identity and access
IBM watsonx OrchestrateExisting authentication uses an impersonation model; agent identity, so agents act for users under their own verifiable identities, is in private preview.Source 11, Source 21
Kong AI GatewayKong can identify the caller, by API key or OAuth, and check it against a per-agent allow or deny list before traffic reaches the agent.Source 9, Source 30
For people signing in to each platform, both support SSO over OIDC or SAML; Kong offers Konnect SSO only on its Enterprise plan.Source 17, Source 31, Source 32
For security teams
What a security review asks, answered from each vendor’s public documentation.
Full comparison
18 criteria in five groups. Every cell links to its source, or says no public source answers it.
| IBM watsonx Orchestrate | Kong AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ||
| What it is and who it’s for | IBM describes it as an agent management platform to build, deploy, orchestrate, manage, and govern agents, for IT, security, and AI leaders.Source 1 | A gateway that governs LLM, MCP, and A2A traffic.Source 5, Source 6 All three run through one data plane, with shared authentication, observability, and policy features.Source 6 |
| Maturity | IBM said its unified release was GA in January 2024; the Agentic Control Plane followed in June 2026.Source 18, Source 19 IBM’s AI Gateway and some dashboards are in preview.Source 20, Source 48 | Version 2.0 announced generally available on 1 September 2026; 2.2.0 released 30 September 2026.Source 22, Source 49 Konnect Catalog’s agent inventory is in beta.Source 14 |
| Control | ||
| Agent registry and discovery | IBM says its searchable catalog holds prebuilt and custom agents and tools.Source 26 IBM’s AI Gateway directory (preview) holds agents imported from other platforms.Source 20, Source 37 | In 2.x, each AI Agent entity, A2A or plain HTTP, is scoped to one gateway instance.Source 6, Source 9 Konnect Catalog’s agent inventory is in beta.Source 14 |
| Identity and access control | Platform SSO over OIDC or SAML, with user, builder, and admin roles.Source 15, Source 31 Existing authentication uses impersonation; agent identity is in private preview.Source 11, Source 21 | Can require an API key or an OpenID Connect login, through Okta, Azure AD, or another provider, then check a per-agent allow or deny list.Source 9, Source 35 |
| Ownership, policy, and revocation | On SaaS outside AWS GovCloud, controls can block unsafe content, protect data, govern model traffic, and limit network access.Source 4 Agent owners: private preview.Source 21 | Agent policies include input validation, logging, and rate limits.Source 9 Kong’s AI PII Sanitizer scrubs requests to AI models: a Plus add-on, included on Enterprise.Source 17, Source 50 |
| Audit log and observability | Traces give a high-level view of a request; registered outside agents can export theirs.Source 51, Source 52 Audit events can go to IBM Cloud targets, or S3 and CloudWatch on AWS.Source 40, Source 41 | A2A audit logs record task IDs, method calls, latencies, and errors.Source 42 A2A telemetry can go to Konnect and OpenTelemetry.Source 9 Bodies go to Konnect only if you opt in.Source 6 |
| Connection | ||
| How agents connect | Agents hosted elsewhere need an accessible endpoint.Source 8 IBM publishes outbound IPs to allowlist; on IBM Cloud, a Satellite TLS tunnel and private endpoints.Source 24, Source 25, Source 33 | Each agent is an upstream URL the gateway proxies to.Source 9 In 2.x, data plane nodes you run forward allowed traffic and stay connected to Konnect.Source 6 |
| Agents across organizations | Except on premises, partner A2A agents from IBM’s catalog can be collaborators.Source 13 A connection sets how Orchestrate authenticates to an external A2A agent.Source 53 | Not publicly documented (checked 2 October 2026) |
| Protocol support | Calls external A2A agents over JSON-RPC 2.0 only, and exposes its own through A2A endpoints.Source 10, Source 54 Imports MCP server tools; OAuth 2.1 and DCR aren’t supported.Source 55 | A2A over JSON-RPC and REST bindings, with agent cards rewritten to the gateway.Source 9 MCP: proxies or combines servers; four revisions, the newest from 2.1.Source 6, Source 56 |
| Frameworks, models, and clouds supported | IBM says it supports native, Langflow, LangGraph, and A2A agents.Source 57 Agents with an OpenAI-style chat completions endpoint and Copilot Studio agents can be added.Source 54 | Proxies A2A and plain HTTP agents, including ones on AgentCore Runtime via SigV4.Source 9 Kong says it doesn’t change how agents are built.Source 58 |
| Operations | ||
| Deployment options and data residency | Managed SaaS in AWS and IBM Cloud regions, or on premises on IBM Cloud Pak for Data or IBM Software Hub.Source 24, Source 59 Agentic Control Plane: not in AWS GovCloud (US).Source 48 | 2.x: a Konnect-managed control plane in a region you choose, data plane nodes you run.Source 6, Source 60 Kong also sells Kong-managed Dedicated Cloud and serverless gateways.Source 17, Source 61, Source 62 |
| Compliance attestations | IBM says the product is FedRAMP authorized on AWS GovCloud (US), and the company holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification.Source 44, Source 45 Premium lists a HIPAA-ready option.Source 16 | From 2.2, FIPS mode uses only FIPS 140-3 approved algorithms; not submitted for NIST validation.Source 46 Kong lists ISO 27001, SOC 2, and PCI DSS for Kong Inc.Source 47 |
| Support and SLA | On AWS, IBM states a 99.9% availability SLA.Source 63 On IBM Cloud, it points to the base IBM Cloud Service Description.Source 64 Support cases can be opened.Source 65 | Konnect targets 99.9% availability; Dedicated Cloud Gateways list a 99.99% SLA, serverless gateways none.Source 17 Enterprise support SLAs: 30 min to 2 hours.Source 17 |
| Time and effort to get running | IBM’s administrator guide covers environment setup and user access.Source 66 Platform SSO is set up with IBM.Source 31 The Agentic Control Plane needs the Admin or Builder role.Source 48 | A quickstart script creates a Konnect control plane and a local Docker data plane; you then add each agent as an AI Agent entity and attach policies.Source 23, Source 67 |
| Pricing model and public prices | Essentials from $530 and Standard from $6,360 USD a month, sized by active users and messages; Premium on request.Source 16 A 30-day free trial.Source 16 | Plus: from $25 a month plus usage; per control plane, $200 hybrid, $500 Dedicated Cloud, $25 serverless.Source 17 Enterprise: custom, billed annually.Source 17 |
| Building | ||
| Agent building tools | IBM says agents can be built in a drag-and-drop visual builder, and Langflow workflows deployed as tools.Source 2 The Agent Development Kit is a Python library and CLI.Source 3 | Kong says it can generate MCP tools and servers from Kong-managed APIs.Source 5 Tools for building agents in Kong AI Gateway are not publicly documented. |
| Model access | IBM-hosted and third-party models, varying by cloud and region.Source 68 Most regions default to GPT-OSS 120B via Groq.Source 68 Other providers’ models can be registered.Source 69 | One API to providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Bedrock, Gemini, Azure AI, Mistral, and Ollama, with credentials you supply.Source 6, Source 67, Source 70 |
| Integrations and ecosystem | IBM says its catalog shows how IBM and partner agents connect to systems such as Microsoft 365 and SAP.Source 26 Partners can integrate through IBM Agent Connect.Source 71 | A Policies Hub of policies and integrations.Source 38 AI Vault works with AWS, GCP, Azure, and HashiCorp Vault secrets backends.Source 6 |
Which to choose
Choose IBM watsonx Orchestrate if
- You want to build agents as well as govern them, using the Agent Development Kit or, IBM says, a visual builder.Source 1, Source 2, Source 3
- You need an on-premises install (IBM Cloud Pak for Data or Software Hub), where some agent controls aren’t available, or SaaS.Source 24, Source 59, Source 72
- You want a catalog that, IBM says, shows how each IBM and partner agent connects to systems like Microsoft 365 and SAP.Source 26
- You want a central place, outside AWS GovCloud, to monitor and manage agents’ operational health, adoption, and quality.Source 48
Choose Kong AI Gateway if
- You want one gateway for LLM, MCP, and A2A traffic, with shared authentication, observability, and policy features.Source 5, Source 6
- You’d rather run the data plane yourself: Kong’s control plane is never in the data path; nodes keep proxying if it’s unreachable.Source 6
- You want to turn existing REST APIs into MCP tools, or combine tools from several MCP servers into one endpoint.Source 6
- You want one API to model providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Mistral, switching or combining them without rewriting integrations.Source 67, Source 70
Questions buyers ask
Is IBM’s AI Gateway the same as Kong AI Gateway?
Do they support MCP and A2A?
Orchestrate calls external A2A agents, exposes its own through A2A endpoints, and imports tools from MCP servers, though not with OAuth 2.1.Source 10, Source 54, Source 55 Kong AI Gateway detects A2A over JSON-RPC and REST bindings, proxies MCP servers or combines their tools, and accepts four MCP revisions.Source 6, Source 9, Source 56
Can either one reach agents at other organizations?
Except on premises, watsonx Orchestrate can add partner A2A agents from IBM’s catalog as collaborators.Source 13 Kong AI Gateway proxies to agents registered as upstream URLs.Source 9 For both, how another organization keeps control of its own agents, beyond issuing credentials, is not publicly documented.
Can either one be self-hosted?
IBM watsonx Orchestrate can be installed on premises, on IBM Cloud Pak for Data or IBM Software Hub.Source 24, Source 59 Fully self-hosted Kong AI gateways are part of Kong’s separate Gateway Enterprise offering; the 2.x AI entities run hybrid, with a Konnect-managed control plane.Source 6, Source 17
How we compare
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Sources
79 public sources, each with the date we checked it. Every one opens in a new tab.
Source 2: AI Agent Builder | IBM watsonx Orchestrate Back:abcdef
Source 3: Welcome to IBM watsonx Orchestrate Agent Development Kit Back:abcdefgh
Source 6: AI Gateway architecture - Kong Docs Back:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx
Source 7: Overview - Agents (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back to text
Source 8: Adding agents from third-party platforms Back:abcde
Source 9: AI Agents - Kong AI Gateway docs Back:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx
Source 10: Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Protocol endpoints Back:abcde
Source 12: AI Agent Control Plane | IBM watsonx Orchestrate Back:ab
Source 18: The AI Assistant for everyone: watsonx Orchestrate combines generative AI and automation to boost productivity | IBM Back:ab
Source 19: Agentic Control Plane in IBM watsonx Orchestrate: One place to control every AI agent Back:abc
Source 21: Prerequisites for configuring agent identity Back:abcde
Source 22: Kong AI Gateway 2.0 Is Now GA - And It's Already Moving Faster Back:ab
Source 23: Route A2A agent traffic through AI Gateway - Kong Docs Back:ab
Source 24: Regional availability and outbound IP addresses Back:abcde
Source 27: Connecting and configuring Amazon Bedrock Back to text
Source 28: Connecting and configuring Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform Back to text
Source 29: Connecting and configuring Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Back to text
Source 35: AI Auth Strategies - Kong AI Gateway docs Back:ab
Source 36: List of events for activity tracking Back to text
Source 39: Request Termination - Configuration Reference - Policy | Kong Docs Back to text
Source 42: Route A2A traffic through AI Gateway - Kong Docs Back:ab
Source 43: Konnect and Dev Portal audit logs - Kong Docs Back to text
Source 44: IBM Expands FedRAMP Portfolio with Authorization of 11 Software Solutions, Including watsonx Back:ab
Source 45: ISO 27001 - IBM Corporation Certificate (Bureau Veritas, ISO/IEC 27001:2022) Back:ab
Source 46: FIPS 140-3 compliance in AI Gateway - Kong Docs Back:ab
Source 49: Kong AI Gateway changelog - Kong Docs Back to text
Source 50: AI PII Sanitizer - Policy | Kong Docs Back to text
Source 51: Overview - Traces (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back to text
Source 52: Exporting observability traces with OpenTelemetry (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back to text
Source 54: Connect to external agents (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back:abc
Source 55: MCP servers Back:ab
Source 56: MCP version support - Kong AI Gateway docs Back:ab
Source 57: Manage all your AI agents in one place with watsonx Orchestrate Back to text
Source 58: The Agent Gateway for Secure, Observable Agent-to-Agent Communication (Kong) Back to text
Source 59: Installing on IBM watsonx Orchestrate On-premises Back:abc
Source 61: Dedicated Cloud Gateways - Kong Docs Back to text
Source 63: High availability, business continuity, backups and disaster recovery on AWS Back to text
Source 64: Licenses and entitlements for watsonx Orchestrate on IBM Cloud Back to text
Source 69: Choosing your LLM (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back to text
Source 71: IBM Agent Connect (watsonx Orchestrate ADK docs) Back to text