head to head · open source
kong vs geodesic
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. geodesic has 1,053 stars, 120 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. kong leads on adoption by 4,112% (44,348 vs 1,053 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; geodesic is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, geodesic 11%. kong 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 | geodesic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-08-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 120 |
| 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 geodesic if
- You want the geodesic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and geodesic 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 geodesic
Geodesic is a robust Linux toolbox container, crafted to optimize DevOps workflows. This container comes loaded with essential dependencies for a DevOps toolchain. It's designed to bring consistency and boost efficiency across development environments. It achieves this without the need for installing additional software on your workstation. Think of Geodesic as a containerized parallel to Vagrant, offering similar functionality within a Docker container context. Although Geodesic is packed with essentials, it is designed to be extended and customized to suit your specific needs. Create your own Dockerfile based…
read the full geodesic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or geodesic more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and geodesic has 1,053. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and geodesic free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and geodesic under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and geodesic?
kong is written in Lua and geodesic in Shell. 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 geodesic?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose geodesic if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.