head to head · open source
kong vs OpenMeter
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. OpenMeter has 2,430 stars, 233 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 1,725% (44,348 vs 2,430 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; OpenMeter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, OpenMeter 10%. OpenMeter 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 | OpenMeter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 233 |
| 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 OpenMeter if
- You want the OpenMeter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and OpenMeter 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 OpenMeter
OpenMeter Meter usage. Enforce access. Bill customers. Keep the stack yours. OpenMeter is open source monetization infrastructure built for AI, API, and usage based products. It turns high volume events into real time usage, powers access enforcement, and handles usage based billing from pricing and subscriptions through credits and invoices. API first and composable, it can own the path from raw usage to invoice—or only the parts your stack is missing—and work with the payment and tax providers you already use. Quickstart · Documentation · API reference · Community How it fits together Is OpenMeter a fit? What…
read the full OpenMeter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or OpenMeter more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and OpenMeter has 2,430. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and OpenMeter free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenMeter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and OpenMeter?
kong is written in Lua and OpenMeter 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 OpenMeter?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenMeter if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.