head to head · open source
kong vs OpenStack
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. OpenStack has 6,034 stars, 1,625 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 632% (44,147 vs 6,034 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 | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| 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 (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 OpenStack
OpenStack is a collection of interoperable components that can be deployed together to provide computing, networking and storage resources. Those infrastructure resources are then exposed to end users through programmable APIs, so that capacity can be requested and managed by software rather than by hand. The project lives in the Python ecosystem and is released under the Apache 2.0 license, with development coordinated at opendev.org and documentation hosted at openstack.org.
read the full OpenStack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or OpenStack more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and OpenStack has 6,034. 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 (44,147 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.