The router component in the Kong Gateway is a crucial element for traffic handling, allowing the definition of specific matching rules to identify and process client requests. As a core component of the gateway, the router plays a vital role in ensuring the functionality, flexibility, security as well as performance of the gateway.

Viktor Gamov also contributed to this post. In recent decades it’s become common for communication between backend services to employ HTTP APIs with JSON payloads. Many HTTP APIs adhere (or at least aspire) to REST Principles, though many fall into a category we’ll call "REST-like".