head to head · open source
kong vs wasm3
kong has 44,148 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. wasm3 has 8,028 stars, 538 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kong leads on adoption by 450% (44,148 vs 8,028 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; wasm3 is written in C under MIT. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, wasm3 7%. wasm3 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 | wasm3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 538 |
| 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 wasm3 if
- You want the wasm3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and wasm3 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 wasm3
Wasm3 is a fast, MIT licensed WebAssembly interpreter written in C that runs across x86, ARM, RISC V, MIPS, Xtensa and other architectures — from ESP8266 microcontrollers and OpenWrt routers to browsers and Linux servers — and it is aimed at developers and embedded engineers who need to execute portable Wasm or WASI code where a full size runtime will not fit.
read the full wasm3 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or wasm3 more popular?
kong has 44,148 GitHub stars and wasm3 has 8,028. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and wasm3 free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wasm3 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and wasm3?
kong is written in Lua and wasm3 in C. 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 wasm3?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,148 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wasm3 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.