head to head · open source
kong vs homelab
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. homelab has 9,709 stars, 890 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 357% (44,348 vs 9,709 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; homelab is written in Python under GPL-3.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, homelab 9%. homelab was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (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 | homelab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 890 |
| 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 homelab if
- You want the homelab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and homelab 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 homelab
Khue's Homelab Features • Get Started • Documentation This project utilizes Infrastructure as Code and GitOps to automate provisioning, operating, and updating self hosted services in my homelab. It can be used as a highly customizable framework to build your own homelab. What is a homelab? Homelab is a laboratory at home where you can self host, experiment with new technologies, practice for certifications, and so on. For more information, please see the r/homelab introduction and the Home Operations Discord community (formerly known as k8s at home). If you encounter an issue, please create a bug report (avoid…
read the full homelab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or homelab more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and homelab has 9,709. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and homelab free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and homelab under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and homelab?
kong is written in Lua and homelab in Python. 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 homelab?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose homelab if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.