head to head · open source
one-api vs kgateway
one-api has 37,316 GitHub stars, 6,887 forks, 1,036 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. kgateway has 5,729 stars, 829 forks, 231 open issues and last shipped yesterday. one-api leads on adoption by 551% (37,316 vs 5,729 stars). one-api is written in JavaScript under MIT; kgateway is written in Go under Apache-2.0. one-api has attracted 18% 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 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 829 |
| 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
中文 English 日本語 One API ✨ 通过标准的 OpenAI API 格式访问所有的大模型，开箱即用 ✨ 部署教程 · 使用方法 · 意见反馈 · 截图展示 · 在线演示 · 常见问题 · 相关项目 · 赞赏支持 [!NOTE] 本项目为开源项目，使用者必须在遵循 OpenAI 的使用条款以及 法律法规 的情况下使用，不得用于非法用途。 根据《生成式人工智能服务管理暂行办法》的要求，请勿对中国地区公众提供一切未经备案的生成式人工智能服务。 [!NOTE] 稳定版 / 预览版镜像地址：justsong/one api 或者 ghcr.io/songquanpeng/one api alpha 版镜像地址：justsong/one api alpha 或者 ghcr.io/songquanpeng/one api alpha [!WARNING] 使用 root 用户初次登录系统后，务必修改默认密码 123456 ！ 功能 1. 支持多种大模型： + [x] OpenAI ChatGPT 系列模型（支持 Azure OpenAI API） + [x] Anthropic Claude 系列模型 (支持 AWS Claude) + [x] Google PaLM2/Gemini 系列模型 + [x] Mistral 系列模型 + [x] 字节跳动豆包大模型（火山引擎） + [x] 百度文心一言系列模型 +…
read the full one-api overview →
About kgateway
The most widely deployed gateway in Kubernetes for microservices About kgateway Kgateway is the most mature and widely deployed gateway in the market today. Built on open source and open standards, kgateway is a resilient and performance oriented control plane that implements the Kubernetes Gateway API for Envoy . With a control plane that scales from lightweight microgateway deployments between services to massively parallel centralized gateways handling billions of API calls, kgateway brings omni directional API connectivity to any cloud and any environment. Use Cases Kgateway is designed for: Next Gen API…
read the full kgateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is one-api or kgateway more popular?
one-api has 37,316 GitHub stars and kgateway has 5,729. 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 (37,316 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kgateway if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.