head to head · open source
one-api vs kgateway
one-api has 36,932 GitHub stars, 6,867 forks, 1,036 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. kgateway has 5,688 stars, 810 forks, 231 open issues and last shipped yesterday. one-api leads on adoption by 549% (36,932 vs 5,688 stars). one-api is written in JavaScript under MIT; kgateway is written in Go under Apache-2.0. one-api has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, kgateway 14%. kgateway 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 | kgateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-01-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 810 |
| 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 kgateway if
- You want the kgateway 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 kgateway 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 kgateway
kgateway is an Apache 2.0, Go based control plane that implements the Kubernetes Gateway API for Envoy, giving platform and API teams a cloud native API gateway for microservices, serverless functions and legacy backends across any cloud or environment.
read the full kgateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is one-api or kgateway more popular?
one-api has 36,932 GitHub stars and kgateway has 5,688. one-api has the larger community by that measure.
Are one-api and kgateway free?
Both are open source. one-api is licensed under MIT and kgateway under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between one-api and kgateway?
one-api is written in JavaScript and kgateway 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 kgateway?
Choose one-api if you want the larger community (36,932 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kgateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.