Kong

An API gateway you run in front of your services for routing, authentication and rate limiting, now also covering LLM and MCP traffic.

44.3k stars, 5.2k forks Lua On GitHub since November 2014

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is Kong?

Kong Gateway proxies requests to your APIs and microservices and adds load balancing, health checks, authentication and other policies through plugins. It is configured with a REST Admin API or declarative files managed by decK, and Kong Manager provides a web UI on port 8002. Newer AI gateway features handle traffic to multiple LLM providers and MCP servers with security and analytics. An official Ingress Controller runs it natively on Kubernetes, and it can also run without a database.

Good fit if

  • You need one place to enforce auth, quotas and logging across many internal or public APIs.
  • You want to put guardrails and analytics in front of LLM calls made by your apps.

Look elsewhere if

  • You need a GraphQL API generated straight from your database: Hasura.
  • You only need a plain reverse proxy for a few sites; a lighter web server will do.

Before you adopt it

The gateway in this repository is Apache-2.0 and contains no paid code; Kong Konnect is a separate hosted service with a free trial. Commit volume here is modest, spread across a handful of developers, with regular releases. The recommended start is Docker Compose with PostgreSQL and Redis.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 31 October 2026. Report a correction

Kong health: is it still maintained?

48 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    13 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 19 October 2026.
    14 / 30
  • Contributors
    6 people wrote the 13 commits of the last 90 days; the most active wrote 38% of them.
    11 / 20
  • Releases
    3 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, 3.9.4, on 12 October 2026.
    15 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Maintainers answered 0% of recent issues.
    0 / 20
  • Security practices
    OpenSSF Scorecard 7.5 of 10.
    8 / 10

Read from GitHub on 3 November 2026. How the score works

Kong license: is it open source?

Kong uses Apache-2.0, an open-source license approved by the OSI.

  1. November 2014First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayApache-2.0.

How to run Kong yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Compose file
scripts/dependency_services/docker-compose-test-services.yml: 5 services (postgres, redis)
Setup effort
3 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
No app builds in GitHub releases
Interface languages
English only

Install instructions: konghq.com or the README on GitHub.

Alternatives to Kong

  • SentryDeveloper-first error tracking and performance monitoring 85 health · Functional Source License · 45.7k stars
  • LangfuseOpen source agent evals & observability: Trace, evaluate, and improve LLM applications with one open platform. 89 health · MIT · 36.9k stars
  • code-serverVS Code in the browser 85 health · MIT · 79.8k stars
  • HyperSwitchOpen source, composable payments platform | PCI compliant | SaaS and Self-host options | Enables… 84 health · Apache-2.0 · 45.7k stars
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All 8 projects in Developer tools

Questions about Kong

Is Kong open source?

Yes. Kong is published under Apache-2.0, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is Kong still maintained?

Its health score is 48 of 100 (actively developed). It had 13 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 19 October 2026, and its latest release came out on 12 October 2026.

How do I run Kong?

You can run it with Docker. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to Kong?

Close alternatives in the Developer tools category include Sentry, Langfuse, code-server.