head to head · open source
kong vs OpenStack
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. OpenStack has 6,072 stars, 1,625 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 630% (44,348 vs 6,072 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; OpenStack is written in Python under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, OpenStack 27%. OpenStack 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 | OpenStack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 OpenStack if
- You want the OpenStack feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and OpenStack 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 OpenStack
OpenStack ========= OpenStack is a collection of interoperable components that can be deployed to provide computing, networking and storage resources. Those infrastructure resources can then be accessed by end users through programmable APIs. This repository just represents OpenStack as a collection of git submodules. You can find the repositories for individual components at: You can learn more about the various components in OpenStack at: To learn more about how to contribute to OpenStack, please head to our Contributor portal: To learn more about how OpenStack is governed, you can visit: Why this repository ?…
read the full OpenStack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or OpenStack more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and OpenStack has 6,072. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and OpenStack free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenStack under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and OpenStack?
kong is written in Lua and OpenStack 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 OpenStack?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenStack if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.