head to head · open source
kong vs architect
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. architect has 2,624 stars, 107 forks, 61 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 1,582% (44,147 vs 2,624 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; architect is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, architect 4%. kong 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
| kong | architect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 107 |
| 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 architect if
- You want the architect feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and architect 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 architect
Architect is an open source JavaScript project for building a functional web app on AWS serverless infrastructure. It lives in the AWS serverless ecosystem, with topics including arc, aws, aws apigateway, aws dynamodb, aws lambda, fwa, infrastructure as code, and serverless. The project uses Apache 2.0 and appears in Infrastructure and Operations, Cloud Infrastructure Management.
read the full architect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or architect more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and architect has 2,624. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and architect free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and architect under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and architect?
kong is written in Lua and architect in JavaScript. 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 architect?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,147 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose architect if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.