#2020th of 36 in Backends, databases and hosting
kong
API gateway with LLM and MCP traffic routing, extended through plugins
- Stars
- 44.3k
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Last commit
- Oct 2026
- Last release
- Oct 2026
- Language
- Lua
42,929 on 10 Apr 202644,339 on 30 Oct 2026
From GitHub's daily star counts.
Checked on GitHub.
Overview
Kong Gateway is a Lua-based API gateway that proxies, routes, load balances and authenticates HTTP and L4 traffic, with behavior extended by plugins. Its AI features add a universal LLM API across providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Bedrock and Azure AI, plus MCP traffic governance and MCP generation from REST APIs. It runs with Postgres, in DB-less mode, or in a hybrid control plane/data plane setup.
Who it is for: Platform engineers routing API, LLM or MCP traffic through a gateway
Strengths
- Plugins for auth, rate limiting, transformations and logging; writable in Lua, Go or JavaScript
- One LLM API fronting OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Bedrock, Azure AI, Mistral and others
- DB-less declarative config, Postgres-backed, or hybrid control/data plane deployment
- Official Kubernetes Ingress Controller; Admin API on 8001, Kong Manager UI on 8002
Weaknesses
- General API gateway, not an AI app starter; AI is one feature set among many
- Analytics, service catalog and developer portals are in the paid Konnect offering
- Needs gateway concepts (services, routes, plugins) and often Postgres to operate
- README quick start uses the separate docker-kong repo, not this repository
What it needs
- no GPU
- Needs PostgreSQL (optional, not needed in DB-less mode)
- Models: OpenAI, Anthropic, GCP Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Azure AI
- port 8002
Quick answers
Is kong open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the Apache-2.0 license.
Also in Backends, databases and hosting
See all 36| Rank | Project | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | appwriteBackend with auth, databases, storage, functions and an MCP server for agents | 92 out of 100 |
| 2 | medusaNode.js commerce platform with modular products, carts, orders and payments | 91 out of 100 |
| 3 | supabasePostgres backend with auth, storage, realtime and edge functions | 90 out of 100 |
| #4 | composeCLI plugin that runs multi-container apps from a compose.yaml file | 90 out of 100 |
| #5 | nacosService discovery, health checking and dynamic config server for microservices | 89 out of 100 |