What is Kong used for?

Kong is a cloud-native, plugin-extensible API gateway that also handles LLM and MCP traffic, runs natively on Kubernetes and can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service. It is a good fit for central gateway for microservices, managing LLM traffic across providers and Kubernetes ingress.

Yes. Kong is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Kong/kong and is written mainly in Lua.

Yes. Kong is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Kong?

Yes. Kong can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Kong an alternative to?

Kong is an open-source alternative to Apigee, Amazon API Gateway, Azure API Management and MuleSoft. Other open-source alternatives to Apigee include Apache APISIX, KrakenD and Tyk.

Is Kong actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Kong was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 3.9.3, published on 17 June 2026. The project has 44k stars on GitHub.

Kong: open-source alternative to Apigee, Amazon API Gateway

About Kong

Kong, also called Kong Gateway, is a cloud-native and platform-agnostic API gateway that has expanded to cover LLM and MCP traffic. It is written in Lua, released under the Apache-2.0 license, and extended through plugins. It proxies, routes, load balances and health checks traffic and handles authentication, sitting as a central layer in front of microservices or conventional APIs.

For AI workloads it adds multi-LLM support, semantic security, and security and analytics for MCP traffic. Kong runs natively on Kubernetes through its official Ingress Controller. The quickstart uses docker-compose, adds authentication to an API in a few minutes, and a Docker procedure covers a DB-less mode, with other distributions listed on the official installation page.

You can run Kong on your own infrastructure, in the cloud, on bare metal or in containers, or sign up for a free trial of the cloud-hosted Kong Konnect. It suits platform and API teams managing many services who need a gateway with a plugin ecosystem and an upgrade path to AI traffic management.

Key features

API gateway with routing and load balancing
Extensible through a plugin system
Authentication and health checking
Multi-LLM and MCP gateway capabilities
Kubernetes Ingress Controller
Docker, DB-less and cloud-hosted deployment

Good fit for

→Central gateway for microservices
→Managing LLM traffic across providers
→Kubernetes ingress

Built with: Lua; Kubernetes
Tags: api-gateway; ai-gateway; kubernetes; microservices; reverse-proxy; mcp; lua; cloud-native

Kong: questions and answers

What is Kong used for?: Kong is a cloud-native, plugin-extensible API gateway that also handles LLM and MCP traffic, runs natively on Kubernetes and can be self-hosted or used as a cloud service. It is a good fit for central gateway for microservices, managing LLM traffic across providers and Kubernetes ingress.
Is Kong open source?: Yes. Kong is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Kong/kong and is written mainly in Lua.
Is Kong free?: Yes. Kong is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Kong?: Yes. Kong can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Kong an alternative to?: Kong is an open-source alternative to Apigee, Amazon API Gateway, Azure API Management and MuleSoft. Other open-source alternatives to Apigee include Apache APISIX, KrakenD and Tyk.
Is Kong actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Kong was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 3.9.3, published on 17 June 2026. The project has 44k stars on GitHub.