Which Kong Gateway versions are supported, and does Kong have LTS?
Kong supports each Enterprise minor version for one year and each LTS version for three, with up to 12 months of sunset help afterwards. 3.10 and 3.14 are the current LTS lines. The open-source edition has no support period from Kong. AceMQ covers both editions on any version and plans the upgrade to a supported line.
Should we run Kong DB-backed or DB-less?
DB-less suits teams that deploy through CI and review configuration like code: there is no database to run, and data planes start from known state. DB-backed suits runtime changes through the Admin API and plugins that need the datastore. For most Kubernetes estates AceMQ recommends declarative configuration with decK or the Ingress Controller, and hybrid mode for large multi-region estates.
Who answers when Kong returns errors in production, and how fast?
A named AceMQ senior engineer answers within 15 minutes, 24/7, when Kong is failing in production. Lower severities get a first response within 1 hour, 4 hours or the next business day. The engineer who takes the first call stays on the case, and every P1 ends with a written root-cause analysis.
How does a Kong consulting engagement with AceMQ start?
A Kong engagement starts with a free consultation with a senior engineer, booked in our reply within 1 hour. A gateway assessment of 1 to 2 weeks follows, covering services, routes, plugin chains, rate limiting, health checks and the deployment model. Written findings and a plan arrive within a week, before anything changes.
Can an AceMQ engineer work alongside our platform team?
Yes. AceMQ assigns a named senior engineer who works with your platform and API teams, changing plugin chains, upstream settings and decK pipelines together with them. Changes are staged route by route with a rollback at each step, and you keep the runbooks for node replacement and plugin changes.
Why does Kong return 502 when the upstream is healthy?
The usual cause is DNS caching: Kong caches resolved addresses for the record TTL, so when pod IPs rotate faster than that, it keeps dialling addresses that no longer exist. The second cause is passive-only health checks, which never re-probe an ejected target. Both are configuration fixes, not capacity problems.
Why is our Kong rate limit not enforced?
Most often the plugin policy or scope is wrong. The local policy counts per node, so an eight-node cluster enforces about eight times the limit. A plugin configured globally shares one counter across every route for each consumer. Moving to the redis policy and attaching the plugin per route fixes both.
Do we need Kong Gateway Enterprise, or is open source enough?
It depends on which Enterprise features you use. If you need RBAC, the developer portal, Enterprise plugins such as OpenID Connect, or Kong's vendor support, the licence buys something real. If you pay for it and use open-source functionality, AceMQ will say so. The health check includes a feature-by-feature read.
Can we work with AceMQ on Kong without a long contract?
Yes. AceMQ works on Kong in two ways: ad hoc engagements for a defined piece of work, such as a health check, an upgrade or an incident, or an annual partner engagement that covers 24/7 support, proactive reviews and named engineers. Many teams start ad hoc and move to an annual partnership once the first engagement is done.
How much does AceMQ Kong support or consulting cost?
Every AceMQ proposal is tailored to your requirements: your Kong environment, the SLA you need, the hours of cover and the scope of work. Most contracts run $24,000–72,000 a year, depending on the SLA, the scope and how Kong is deployed, with aggressive discounts when several technologies share one contract. Request a quote and AceMQ replies within 1 hour.
Kubernetes
NGINX
PostgreSQL
Docker
Redis
