head to head · open source
kong vs boto3
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. boto3 has 9,902 stars, 1,995 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 346% (44,147 vs 9,902 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; boto3 is written in Python under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, boto3 20%. boto3 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 | boto3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 boto3 if
- You want the boto3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and boto3 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 boto3
Boto3 is the Amazon Web Services Software Development Kit for Python, letting Python developers write software that uses AWS services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2.
read the full boto3 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or boto3 more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and boto3 has 9,902. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and boto3 free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and boto3 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and boto3?
kong is written in Lua and boto3 in Python. 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 boto3?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,147 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose boto3 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.