head to head · open source
kong vs st2
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars, 5,238 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. st2 has 6,556 stars, 797 forks, 603 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 576% (44,348 vs 6,556 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; st2 is written in Python under Apache-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, st2 12%. st2 was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (devops), 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 | st2 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 797 |
| 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 st2 if
- You want the st2 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 st2 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 st2
StackStorm is a platform for integration and automation across services and tools, taking actions in response to events. Learn more at www.stackstorm.com. TL;DR Install Get yourself a clean 64 bit Linux box that fits the system requirements. Run the installer script: Read the docs: Questions? Check out forum.stackstorm.com Or join our Slack community StackStorm Overview About StackStorm is a platform for integration and automation across services and tools. It ties together your existing infrastructure and application environment so you can more easily automate that environment with a particular focus on taking…
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or st2 more popular?
kong has 44,348 GitHub stars and st2 has 6,556. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and st2 free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and st2 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and st2?
kong is written in Lua and st2 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 st2?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,348 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose st2 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.