head to head · open source
kong vs headlamp
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. headlamp has 7,294 stars, 1,112 forks, 1,422 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 505% (44,147 vs 7,294 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; headlamp is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, headlamp 15%. headlamp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cloud-native, devops, kubernetes), 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 | headlamp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 7.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 headlamp if
- You want the headlamp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and headlamp 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 headlamp
Headlamp is an Apache 2.0 licensed, vendor independent Kubernetes web UI written in TypeScript that runs either inside a cluster or locally as a desktop application, and it is built for platform engineers, cluster operators, and developers who need to inspect and change Kubernetes resources through a graphical interface.
read the full headlamp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or headlamp more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and headlamp has 7,294. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and headlamp free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and headlamp under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and headlamp?
kong is written in Lua and headlamp in TypeScript. 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 headlamp?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,147 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose headlamp if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.