head to head · open source
kong vs boto3
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. boto3 has 9,923 stars, 2,007 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 347% (44,348 vs 9,923 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| kong | boto3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-30 |
| 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 logo]][kong url] [![Build Status][badge action image]][badge action url] Kong or Kong Gateway is a cloud native, platform agnostic, scalable API 𖧹 LLM 𖧹 MCP Gateway distinguished for its high performance and extensibility via plugins. It also provides advanced AI traffic capabilities with multi LLM support, semantic security, MCP traffic security and analytics, and more. By providing functionality for proxying, routing, load balancing, health checking, authentication (and more), Kong serves as the central layer for orchestrating microservices or conventional API traffic and agentic LLM and MCP as…
About boto3
=============================== Boto3 The AWS SDK for Python =============================== Boto3 is the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Software Development Kit (SDK) for Python, which allows Python developers to write software that makes use of services like Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2. You can find the latest, most up to date, documentation at our doc site , including a list of services that are supported. Boto3 is maintained and published by Amazon Web Services . Boto (pronounced boh toh) was named after the fresh water dolphin native to the Amazon river. The name was chosen by the author of the original Boto…
read the full boto3 overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Cloud Infrastructure Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Cloud Infrastructure Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is kong or boto3 more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and boto3 has 9,923. 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 (44,348 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.