head to head · open source
kong vs certimate
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. certimate has 9,422 stars, 920 forks, 51 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 371% (44,348 vs 9,422 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; certimate is written in Go under MIT. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, certimate 10%. certimate 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 | certimate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 920 |
| 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 certimate if
- You want the certimate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and certimate 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 certimate
🔒 Certimate English ｜ 简体中文 🚩 Introduction An open source and free self hosted SSL certificates ACME tool, automates the full cycle of issuance, deployment, renewal, and monitoring visually. Self hosted : Private deployment. All data is stored locally, to ensure data privacy and security. Cross Platforms : Compatible with various operating systems, including Windows/Linux/macOS. Zero Dependencies : No need to install databases, runtimes, or any frameworks. Ready to use out of the box. Low Resource Usage : Extremely lightweight, requiring only 20 MB of memory. Easy to Use : Automates certificate management with…
read the full certimate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or certimate more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and certimate has 9,422. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and certimate free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and certimate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and certimate?
kong is written in Lua and certimate 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 certimate?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose certimate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.