The best kong alternatives

mcp-context-forge

IBM/mcp-context-forge

An AI Gateway, registry, and proxy that sits in front of any MCP, A2A, or REST/gRPC APIs, exposing a unified endpoint with centralized discovery, guardrails and management. Optimizes Agent & Tool calling, and supports plugins.

Choose mcp-context-forge if…

• you would rather work in Python than Lua
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need agents or asyncio

Shares ai, api-gateway, devops, kubernetes with kong.

netdata

netdata/netdata

The fastest path to AI-powered full stack observability, even for lean teams.

Choose netdata if…

• you would rather work in Go than Lua
• GNU General Public License v3.0 suits your use better than Apache License 2.0
• you want the more widely starred option (81.3k)
• you specifically need alerting or cncf

Shares ai, devops, kubernetes, mcp with kong.

kubesphere

kubesphere/kubesphere

The container platform tailored for Kubernetes multi-cloud, datacenter, and edge management ⎈ 🖥 ☁️

Choose kubesphere if…

• you would rather work in Go than Lua
• you want something your agent can install directly rather than a library to wire up yourself
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need agent-skills or cncf

Shares ai, cloud-native, devops, kubernetes with kong.

WasmEdge

WasmEdge/WasmEdge

WasmEdge is a lightweight, high-performance, and extensible WebAssembly runtime for cloud native, edge, and decentralized applications. It powers serverless apps, embedded functions, microservices, smart contracts, and IoT devices.

Choose WasmEdge if…

• you would rather work in C++ than Lua
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need cloud or cncf

Shares artificial-intelligence, cloud-native, kubernetes, serverless with kong.

litellm

BerriAI/litellm

The fastest, litest AI Gateway. Rust core with Python SDK. Call 100+ LLM APIs in OpenAI (or native) format with cost tracking, guardrails, load balancing, and logging [Bedrock, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, VertexAI, vLLM, Nvidia NIM]

Choose litellm if…

• you would rather work in Python than Lua
• you specifically need anthropic or azure-openai

Shares ai-gateway, llm-gateway, mcp-gateway, openai-proxy with kong.

kratos

go-kratos/kratos

Your ultimate Go microservices framework for the cloud-native era.

Choose kratos if…

• you would rather work in Go than Lua
• MIT License suits your use better than Apache License 2.0
• you specifically need architecture or framework

Shares ai, cloud-native, mcp, microservice with kong.

oracle-ai-developer-hub

oracle-devrel/oracle-ai-developer-hub

Technical resources for AI developers to build applications, agents, and systems using Oracle AI Database and OCI services

Choose oracle-ai-developer-hub if…

• you would rather work in Jupyter Notebook than Lua
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need agentmemory or agents

Shares ai, artificial-intelligence, kubernetes with kong.

OmniRoute

diegosouzapw/OmniRoute

Never stop coding. Free MIT AI gateway: one endpoint, 352 providers (150+ free), 1200+ models Kimi, Claude, GPT, Gemini, GLM, DeepSeek, MiniMax. Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Cline & Copilot. Quota-aware auto-fallback, RTK+Caveman compression saves 15-95% tokens, MCP/A2A, Desktop/PWA. Built by 550+ contributors

Choose OmniRoute if…

• you would rather work in TypeScript than Lua
• MIT License suits your use better than Apache License 2.0
• you want the more widely starred option (84.1k)
• you specifically need a2a or ai-agents

Shares ai-gateway, llm-gateway, mcp, openai-proxy with kong.

gateway

Portkey-AI/gateway

A blazing fast AI Gateway with integrated guardrails. Route to 1,600+ LLMs, 50+ AI Guardrails with 1 fast & friendly API.

Choose gateway if…

• you would rather work in TypeScript than Lua
• MIT License suits your use better than Apache License 2.0
• you want something your agent can install directly rather than a library to wire up yourself
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one

Shares ai-gateway, llm-gateway, mcp, mcp-gateway with kong.

nacos

alibaba/nacos

an easy-to-use dynamic service discovery, configuration and service management platform for building AI cloud native applications.

Choose nacos if…

• you would rather work in Java than Lua
• you want something your agent can install directly rather than a library to wire up yourself
• you specifically need a2a-registry or agent

Shares kubernetes, mcp, microservices with kong.

recommenders

recommenders-team/recommenders

Best Practices on Recommendation Systems

Choose recommenders if…

• you would rather work in Python than Lua
• MIT License suits your use better than Apache License 2.0
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need data-science or deep-learning

Shares ai, artificial-intelligence, kubernetes with kong.

serve

jina-ai/serve

☁️ Build multimodal AI applications with cloud-native stack

Choose serve if…

• you would rather work in Python than Lua
• you prefer a smaller, narrower project to a large one
• you specifically need cncf or deep-learning

Shares cloud-native, kubernetes, microservice with kong.