42Crunch vs Kong

42Crunch positions itself as an API security gateway and policy enforcement layer, favoring teams that want runtime protection and strict request validation in production. Kong positions itself as an API gateway with security plugins, appealing to organizations already using gateway-centric traffic management. MiddleBrick targets engineers and security practitioners who need a black-box scanner that runs without agents, SDKs, or code access and returns a risk score with prioritized findings in under a minute.

42Crunch focuses on policy enforcement, runtime threat protection, and schema validation, with security tied to its gateway execution layer. Kong provides gateway features plus security plugins for authentication, rate limiting, and transformation, but does not include a dedicated scanner with risk scoring. MiddleBrick maps findings to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), PCI-DSS 4.0, and SOC 2 Type II, covering 12 categories such as authentication bypass, BOLA, BFLA, input validation, SSRF, data exposure, and LLM/AI security through 18 adversarial probe tiers. It performs black-box scanning using only read-only methods and text-only POST for LLM probes, avoiding any runtime blocking or transformation.

42Crunch integrates via its gateway and may require changes to deployment pipelines to enforce policies. Kong integrates through its plugin ecosystem, enabling traffic transformation and policy application at the gateway. MiddleBrick supports authenticated scanning with Bearer, API key, Basic auth, and cookies, gated by domain verification to ensure only domain owners can scan with credentials. It exposes a narrow header allowlist and parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 with recursive $ref resolution, cross-referencing spec definitions against runtime behavior. MiddleBrick helps you prepare for audits by surfacing findings relevant to PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and OWASP API Top 10, while alignment with other frameworks is stated as support for audit evidence only.

42Crunch operates within the request path, enforcing policies and potentially blocking traffic based on runtime conditions. Kong operates as a gateway, applying transformations and policies to traffic, with security delivered through plugins. MiddleBrick completes a scan in under a minute using read-only interactions, including GET and HEAD methods and controlled POST for LLM probes. It does not fix, patch, or block, and it does not perform intrusive payloads such as active SQL injection or command injection. Critical infrastructure such as private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints are blocked at multiple layers, and scan data is deletable on demand and never sold or used for model training.

42Crunch offers subscription plans focused on gateway and policy capabilities, with pricing tied to throughput and feature sets. Kong provides a free tier and commercial subscriptions centered on gateway throughput and plugin counts. MiddleBrick follows a tiered model: Free for 3 scans per month with CLI access; Starter at 99 USD per month for 15 APIs, dashboard, email alerts, and MCP Server; Pro at 499 USD per month for 100 APIs with continuous monitoring, GitHub Action gates, CI/CD integration, Slack/Teams alerts, compliance reports, and signed webhooks; Enterprise at 2000 USD per month for unlimited APIs, custom rules, SSO, audit logs, and dedicated support. Continuous monitoring in Pro includes scheduled rescans every 6 hours to monthly, diff detection across scans, and rate-limited email alerts. Integrations include a web dashboard, CLI via an npm package, GitHub Action for CI/CD gating, an MCP server for AI coding assistants, and a programmable API for custom workflows.