head to head · open source
kong vs devtron
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. devtron has 5,630 stars, 605 forks, 777 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 688% (44,348 vs 5,630 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; devtron is written in Go under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, devtron 11%. devtron 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 | devtron | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 605 |
| 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 devtron if
- You want the devtron feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and devtron 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 devtron
Note: We have restructured the readme. If you are looking for Devtron's CI/CD capabilities, please click here AI Native Kubernetes Management Platform Kubernetes is powerful but complex. Devtron unifies app and infrastructure management with an AI teammate to simplify operations and accelerate delivery. Explore Documentation · Try Devtron SaaS Website · Blogs · Join Discord channel . YouTube Devtron's extensible Kubernetes Dashboard provides clear visibility into your Kubernetes clusters and streamlines Helm app management through a single, intuitive interface. With built in RBAC, it ensures secure access while…
read the full devtron overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or devtron more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and devtron has 5,630. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and devtron free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and devtron under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and devtron?
kong is written in Lua and devtron 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 devtron?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose devtron if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.