head to head · open source
kong vs App-Store-Connect-CLI
kong has 44,148 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. App-Store-Connect-CLI has 7,270 stars, 613 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 507% (44,148 vs 7,270 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; App-Store-Connect-CLI is written in Go under MIT. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, App-Store-Connect-CLI 8%. App-Store-Connect-CLI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (devops), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| kong | App-Store-Connect-CLI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 7.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 613 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kong if
- You weight community size — 44K 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 App-Store-Connect-CLI if
- You want the App-Store-Connect-CLI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and App-Store-Connect-CLI fits your workflow better
About kong
Kong (also known as Kong Gateway) is an open source, cloud native, platform agnostic API, LLM, and MCP gateway, licensed under Apache 2.0, built for platform, DevOps, and AI engineering teams that need a single high performance layer to route, secure, and observe both conventional API traffic and agentic LLM traffic.
About App-Store-Connect-CLI
App Store Connect CLI is a Go based, MIT licensed command line tool that exposes the App Store Connect API so iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS teams can automate TestFlight, builds, submissions, signing, analytics, screenshots, and subscriptions from a terminal, an IDE, or a CI/CD pipeline.
read the full App-Store-Connect-CLI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or App-Store-Connect-CLI more popular?
kong has 44,148 GitHub stars and App-Store-Connect-CLI has 7,270. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and App-Store-Connect-CLI free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and App-Store-Connect-CLI under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and App-Store-Connect-CLI?
kong is written in Lua and App-Store-Connect-CLI 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, kong or App-Store-Connect-CLI?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,148 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose App-Store-Connect-CLI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.