Kong GatewayvsvLLM
Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.
| Kong Gateway | vLLM | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82/100 | 91/100 |
| Rank in category | #1 of 39 in API Gateway | #3 of 25 in LLM Inference |
| GitHub stars | 44 314 | 95 756 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +128 | +3 204 |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 3 | 14 |
| Latest release | 3.9.4 · 12 Oct 2026 | v0.32.0 · 17 Oct 2026 |
| Setup | Moderate | Moderate |
| Official Docker image | No | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Main language | Lua | Python |
Which one should you pick?
vLLM scores 91/100 against 82/100 for Kong Gateway, so it is the safer default.
vLLM ships more often: 14 stable releases in the past year, against 3 for Kong Gateway.
vLLM is growing faster right now (+3 204 stars in 30 days).
Kong Gateway details →vLLM details →