head to head · open source
kong vs wtf
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars, 5,210 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. wtf has 17,093 stars, 864 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. kong leads on adoption by 158% (44,147 vs 17,093 stars). kong is written in Lua under Apache-2.0; wtf is written in Go under MPL-2.0. kong has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, wtf 5%. kong 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 | wtf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 864 |
| 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 wtf if
- You want the wtf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and wtf 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 wtf
WTF (also known as wtfutil) is a free, open source personal information dashboard that runs in the terminal, built for developers and technical people who want at a glance access to important but infrequently consulted data without leaving the command line.
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Frequently asked questions
Is kong or wtf more popular?
kong has 44,147 GitHub stars and wtf has 17,093. kong has the larger community by that measure.
Are kong and wtf free?
Both are open source. kong is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wtf under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kong and wtf?
kong is written in Lua and wtf 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 wtf?
Choose kong if you want the larger community (44,147 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wtf if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.