head to head · open source
kong vs gocd
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. gocd has 7,436 stars, 986 forks, 83 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 496% (44,348 vs 7,436 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; gocd is written in Java under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, gocd 13%. gocd 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 | gocd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 986 |
| 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 gocd if
- You want the gocd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and gocd 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 gocd
GoCD This is the main repository for GoCD a continuous delivery server. GoCD helps you automate and streamline the build test release cycle for worry free, continuous delivery of your product. To quickly build your first pipeline while learning key GoCD concepts, visit our Test Drive GoCD. To download GoCD, visit the downloads page. For more detailed user help, read our docs. Security Please see the security policy for details on GoCD's security status, and how to responsibly disclose issues. Development GoCD is predominantly a Java & TypeScript project utilising Spring Framework, SparkJava & MithrilJS as key…
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or gocd more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and gocd has 7,436. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and gocd free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gocd under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and gocd?
kong is written in Lua and gocd in Java. 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 gocd?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gocd if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.