head to head · open source
fastapi vs kgateway
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. kgateway has 5,688 stars, 810 forks, 231 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 1,700% (102,402 vs 5,688 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; kgateway is written in Go under Apache-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, kgateway 14%. kgateway 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
| fastapi | kgateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 810 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick fastapi if
- You weight community size — 102K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kgateway if
- You want the kgateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kgateway fits your workflow better
About fastapi
FastAPI is an MIT licensed, high performance Python web framework for building APIs with standard Python type hints, aimed at Python developers and teams that need production ready HTTP services with automatic OpenAPI documentation.
read the full fastapi overview →
About kgateway
kgateway is an Apache 2.0, Go based control plane that implements the Kubernetes Gateway API for Envoy, giving platform and API teams a cloud native API gateway for microservices, serverless functions and legacy backends across any cloud or environment.
read the full kgateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or kgateway more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and kgateway has 5,688. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and kgateway free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and kgateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and kgateway?
fastapi is written in Python and kgateway 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, fastapi or kgateway?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kgateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.