head to head · open source
kong vs Digger
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Digger has 5,045 stars, 611 forks, 482 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 775% (44,147 vs 5,045 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; Digger is written in Go under MIT. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Digger 12%. Digger 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 | Digger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 611 |
| 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 Digger if
- You want the Digger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Digger 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 Digger
Digger is an open source infrastructure as code orchestration tool written in Go and released under the MIT license. It runs Terraform natively inside an existing CI pipeline rather than on a separate hosted service, and it lives in the Terraform and OpenTofu ecosystem alongside the category of tools the project calls TACOS, or Terraform Automation and Collaboration Software. The project has been rebranded to OpenTaco as of 7 November 2025, while the company behind it remains Digger and the engine is unchanged.
read the full Digger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or Digger more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and Digger has 5,045. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and Digger free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Digger under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and Digger?
kong is written in Lua and Digger 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 Digger?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,147 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Digger if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.