Kong
Kong is an open-source, self-hosted app in the API Management category, licensed Apache-2.0 and written mainly in Lua. It is a self-hosted alternative to Postman and ships a Docker image. It has 44,301 GitHub stars and its last commit was on Oct 19, 2026 (data as of Oct 26, 2026).
GitHub stats
- GitHub stars
- 44,301
- Forks
- 5,238
- Open issues
- 92
- Commits, last 12 months
- 35
- Last commit
- Oct 19, 2026
- Latest release
- 3.9.4Oct 12, 2026
- Created
- Nov 17, 2014
- License
- Apache-2.0Open source
Data as of from the GitHub API. Report an error
Project health
ActiveActive: last commit Oct 19, 2026, 35 commits in 12 months.
- Security policyPublishes a security policy on GitHub
| Last commit | Oct 19, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 12 months | 35 |
| Latest release | 3.9.4 (Oct 12, 2026) |
| Releases, last 12 months | 3 |
| Releases, all time | 148 |
| Open issues | 92 |
| Open pull requests | 129 |
| Good first issues | 0 |
| Contributing guide | Yes |
| Security policy | Yes |
| Created | Nov 17, 2014 |
Health as of , from the GitHub API. A label describes activity, not quality or security. How we label project health · Report a data error
About Kong
Microservice API Gateway and Platform.
Description adapted from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source code: github.com/Kong/kong.
Topics
- api-gateway
- microservices
- api-management
- serverless
- apis
- reverse-proxy
- cloud-native
- microservice
- devops
- kubernetes
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Is Kong free and open source?
Yes. Kong is open-source software released under the Apache-2.0 license, so you can self-host it at no cost. You only pay for the server it runs on, and some projects also offer an optional paid cloud plan.
Can I run Kong with Docker?
Yes. Kong provides a Docker image, so you can run it on any Linux server with Docker and Docker Compose installed. The project README lists the image name and the environment variables to set.
What are the best alternatives to Kong?
Popular self-hosted alternatives to Kong include Hoppscotch Community Edition, Bruno and Hasura. Kong itself is a self-hosted alternative to Postman.
Is Kong actively maintained?
The most recent commit to Kong was on Oct 19, 2026 with 35 commits in the past twelve months. The latest release is 3.9.4, published Oct 12, 2026. It had 92 open issues on GitHub. appsgit's project-health label for it is "Active" as of Oct 26, 2026.