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API marketplace on Kong

A developer portal, API gateway, and workspaces on Kong that let teams publish APIs and consumers discover them — public, partner, and private, with onboarding driven through CI/CD.

Overview

APIs were scattered across teams — hard to find, inconsistently documented, and consumed through tickets and tribal knowledge. The goal was a single API marketplace: one place for producers to publish and for consumers to discover, register, and learn how to use an API.

The pattern uses a managed API platform — a developer portal, an API gateway, and an API manager — with APIs organized into workspaces and exposed at the right level for each audience.

The challenge

APIs scattered and inconsistently documented across teams
No single place to discover, register for, and consume an API
Producer onboarding was manual and slow
Access was not segmented by audience (public, partner, internal)

Our approach

Stood up Kong Enterprise as the API management platform — developer portal, gateway, and API manager
Organized APIs into producer and consumer workspaces, split into Public, Partner, and Private for appropriate access
Published specifications and documentation to the developer portal so consumers self-serve credentials, specs, and usage metrics
Onboarded producers through the API Manager, integrated into their existing PLDC via CI/CD pipelines
Enabled gateway plugins — CORS and JWT authentication today, with rate-limiting, response caching, and request validation as the platform matures

Results & business impact

Consumers discover and self-serve APIs from one marketplace instead of raising tickets
Access is segmented by audience — public, partner, and private
Producer onboarding is repeatable and pipeline-driven
The platform is centrally governed and consistent across teams

Tools & technology

Kong Enterprise Developer Portal API Gateway API Manager OpenAPI 3 Workspaces CORS JWT Rate limiting