head to head · open source
kong vs OpenMeter
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. OpenMeter has 2,285 stars, 214 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 1,832% (44,147 vs 2,285 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 9%. 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 | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 214 |
| 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 (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 OpenMeter
OpenMeter is open source monetization infrastructure built for AI, API, and usage based products. It lives in the Go cloud infrastructure ecosystem and uses an Apache 2.0 license. The project turns high volume events into real time usage, supports access enforcement, and handles usage based billing from pricing and subscriptions through credits and invoices.
read the full OpenMeter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or OpenMeter more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and OpenMeter has 2,285. 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 (44,147 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.