head to head · open source
one-api vs gateway
one-api has 36,932 GitHub stars, 6,867 forks, 1,036 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. gateway has 3,036 stars, 867 forks, 761 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. one-api leads on adoption by 1,116% (36,932 vs 3,036 stars). one-api is written in JavaScript under MIT; gateway is written in Go under Apache-2.0. one-api has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, gateway 29%. gateway was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api-gateway), 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
| one-api | gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-01-09 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 867 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick one-api if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gateway if
- You want the gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gateway fits your workflow better
About one-api
One API is a self hosted LLM API management and key redistribution system that exposes many model providers through the standard OpenAI API format, aimed at developers, teams and operators who want a single endpoint, a single key model and a single quota surface across providers.
read the full one-api overview →
About gateway
Envoy Gateway is an open source project that manages Envoy Proxy as a standalone or Kubernetes based application gateway. It lives in the Kubernetes and Envoy Proxy ecosystem, and it is associated with the CNCF, Gateway API, and go control plane topics. The project is written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0.
read the full gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is one-api or gateway more popular?
one-api has 36,932 GitHub stars and gateway has 3,036. one-api has the larger community by that measure.
Are one-api and gateway free?
Both are open source. one-api is licensed under MIT and gateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between one-api and gateway?
one-api is written in JavaScript and gateway 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, one-api or gateway?
Choose one-api if you want the larger community (36,932 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.