--- title: API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok | daily.dev description: A vendor comparison from ngrok walks through setting up JWT-based authentication with Auth0 on both Kong Gateway and ngrok's API gateway, arguing that ngrok's... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok | daily.dev og:description: A vendor comparison from ngrok walks through setting up JWT-based authentication with Auth0 on both Kong Gateway and ngrok's API gateway, arguing that ngrok's... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/XI8xN3Uj9.png og:image:alt: API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok **[ngrok Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A vendor comparison from ngrok walks through setting up JWT-based authentication with Auth0 on both Kong Gateway and ngrok's API gateway, arguing that ngrok's developer-defined, edge-based approach requires far fewer steps, less infrastructure decision-making, and less custom tooling than Kong's self-hosted Admin API and decK workflow. The piece frames developer experience in terms of setup simplicity and long-term benefits like global load balancing and declarative YAML configuration. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are the main steps to set up JWT authentication with Auth0 on Kong Gateway? Setting up JWT authentication on Kong Gateway involves deploying Kong Gateway itself (choosing a hybrid, traditional database, or database-less topology), then using the Admin API with curl to create a Service, create a Route, and enable the JWT Plugin. Separately, an Auth0 account and API must be created, its X509 certificate downloaded, the public key extracted, and an API Consumer created from that key before distributing access tokens to consumers. _Developers comparing API gateway setups can track Kong versus ngrok tradeoffs on daily.dev._ ### How does ngrok's API gateway handle JWT authentication compared to Kong? ngrok enforces JWT-based authentication through its Traffic Policy feature, configured declaratively in a version-controllable .yml file, without needing a separate database or complex networking topology decisions. This contrasts with Kong Gateway, which requires deploying separate infrastructure and using curl against an Admin API (or the decK CLI with complex syntax) to configure a JWT plugin. _Teams weighing declarative gateway configuration options can follow this comparison on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Kong Konnect Has Two Front Doors and Neither One Is the One I Want](https://daily.dev/posts/kong-konnect-has-two-front-doors-and-neither-one-is-the-one-i-want-ilicrglgm) · API Evangelist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [API Gateway in Microservices: A Complete Guide for Developers](https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-in-microservices-a-complete-guide-for-developers-ona7cjfwl) · C\# Corner · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [Using an API Gateway with Fine-Grained Authorization](https://daily.dev/posts/using-an-api-gateway-with-fine-grained-authorization-4i7unvhbp) · Auth0 · 6 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devtools](https://daily.dev/tags/devtools), [#api-gateway](https://daily.dev/tags/api-gateway), [#jwt](https://daily.dev/tags/jwt), [#auth0](https://daily.dev/tags/auth0) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T07:21:40.155Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T07:29:05.623Z","description":"A vendor comparison from ngrok walks through setting up JWT-based authentication with Auth0 on both Kong Gateway and ngrok's API gateway, arguing that ngrok's...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1a21f319f62001f956686142164f65e8?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1a21f319f62001f956686142164f65e8?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"ngrok Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ngrok Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--718XXxvE--/f_auto,q_auto/v1787469610/logos/ngrok?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"devtools,api-gateway,jwt,auth0","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ngrok Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"API gateway developer experience: Kong vs ngrok"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/api-gateway-developer-experience-kong-vs-ngrok-xi8xn3uj9#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What are the main steps to set up JWT authentication with Auth0 on Kong Gateway?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Setting up JWT authentication on Kong Gateway involves deploying Kong Gateway itself (choosing a hybrid, traditional database, or database-less topology), then using the Admin API with curl to create a Service, create a Route, and enable the JWT Plugin. 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