head to head · open source
Apache APISIX vs swag
Apache APISIX has 17,289 GitHub stars, 2,989 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swag has 13,047 stars, 1,494 forks, 476 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Apache APISIX leads on adoption by 33% (17,289 vs 13,047 stars). Apache APISIX is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; swag is written in Go under MIT. Apache APISIX has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, swag 11%. Apache APISIX was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Apache APISIX | swag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Apache APISIX if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick swag if
- You want the swag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swag fits your workflow better
About Apache APISIX
Apache APISIX API Gateway ｜ AI Gateway Apache APISIX is a dynamic, real time, high performance API Gateway. APISIX API Gateway provides rich traffic management features such as load balancing, dynamic upstream, canary release, circuit breaking, authentication, observability, and more. You can use it to handle traditional north south traffic, as well as east west traffic between services. It can also be used as a Kubernetes ingress controller. Table of Contents Why APISIX AI Gateway Get Started Features Benchmark Community User Stories Who Uses APISIX API Gateway? Logos Acknowledgments License Why APISIX APISIX…
read the full Apache APISIX overview →
About swag
swag 🌍 English ∙ 简体中文 ∙ Português Swag converts Go annotations to Swagger Documentation 2.0. We've created a variety of plugins for popular Go web frameworks. This allows you to quickly integrate with an existing Go project (using Swagger UI). Contents Getting started Supported Web Frameworks How to use it with Gin The swag formatter Implementation Status Declarative Comments Format General API Info API Operation Security Examples Descriptions over multiple lines User defined structure with an array type Function scoped struct declaration Model composition in response Add request headers Add response headers…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache APISIX or swag more popular?
Apache APISIX has 17,289 GitHub stars and swag has 13,047. Apache APISIX has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache APISIX and swag free?
Both are open source. Apache APISIX is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache APISIX and swag?
Apache APISIX is written in Lua and swag in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Apache APISIX or swag?
Choose Apache APISIX if you want the larger community (17,289 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.