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Kong-Gateway

Lightweight, fast, and flexible cloud native API gateway.

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Lightweight, fast, and flexible cloud native API gateway.
This is a DB-less version of Kong Gateway. Please refer to "declarative" variants when configuring.

Platform availability

Available on 1 of 6 install platforms

  • Unraid
  • TrueNAS (not listed)
  • Umbrel (not listed)
  • ZimaOS (not listed)
  • Proxmox (not listed)
  • Helm (not listed)

Also on Docker Hub and GitHub

Health score

79/100 Good

Maintained
93last commit 7 days ago
Popular
9344,210 GitHub stars
Easy to install
351 install platform, install notes, Docker image
Light to run
No data

Based on 3 of 4 factors.

How is this calculated?

A 0-100 score computed nightly from four factors: maintained (40%: recent commits and steady activity), popular (25%: GitHub stars, log scale), easy to install (20%: platforms, install notes, setup guides, Docker image) and light to run (15%: minimum RAM, ARM support). Factors without data are left out and the rest are rescaled.

Availability: platform listings confirmed today, links checked 7 days ago

GitHub stars
44,210
Open issues
219
Last commit
2026-09-28
Latest release
3.9.3
License
Apache-2.0
Activity
rising

Checked 7 days ago - source: GitHub (Kong/kong)

Resources & Compatibility

ARM (e.g. Raspberry Pi) is supported.

Checked 7 days ago - source: Docker Hub image tags and published docs

First-install notes

  • Prepare Kong’s datastore before first start On a fresh install, run kong migrations bootstrap first, then kong start. This creates the database tables Kong needs, so the gateway can actually store routes and settings instead of erroring out. source
  • Keep your Kong config file safe By default, Kong reads its settings from /etc/kong/kong.conf. That file controls things like where the database lives, so keeping a backup helps if you need to reconnect or rebuild the setup. source
  • Use -c if your config lives elsewhere If you did not use the default config location, pass -c /path/to/your/kong.conf to bootstrap and start. This prevents Kong from using the wrong settings and pointing at the wrong datastore. source

Fetched 7 days ago - each note links to its source

Alternatives (1)

  • Apigee - Apigee is a free tools platform for developers and API providers to debug, test, protect and get analytics on APIs.

Checked 4 days ago - source: AlternativeTo

Common questions

Which ports does the Docker Compose quickstart expose for traffic, administration, and the manager UI?

The compose stack makes the proxy port 8000, the Admin API or decK configuration port 8001, and the Kong Manager web UI port 8002 available on localhost.

What must I run on a fresh install before starting Kong with a database?

Run kong migrations bootstrap before kong start. This creates the database tables needed for routes and settings, and if your config is not in the default location, pass -c to the config file.

Where does Kong read its default configuration from, and how do I use a custom config file?

Kong reads its settings from /etc/kong/kong.conf by default. If the config lives elsewhere, pass -c /path/to/your/kong.conf to bootstrap and start so Kong uses the correct datastore settings.

Is there a DB-less Docker installation option?

Yes, the README mentions a Docker installation procedure for running Kong Gateway in DB-less mode.

Answers sourced from github.com, github.com

Community

Collected yesterday - public community threads