# Kong Gateway vs Traefik

| Attribute | Kong Gateway | Traefik |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 49.4 (76% (high)) | 53.3 (55% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 1 | 90 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1 | 52 |
| adoption.github_stars | 44,043 | 64,604 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Kong provides a unified platform for building, testing, and governing APIs and AI agents. It handles both traditional API gateway functions—routing, rate limiting, authentication—and modern AI-specific concerns like token budgeting, context management, and LLM traffic control. Includes gateway, API management, testing tools, and event streaming capabilities. | Traefik is a reverse proxy that automatically discovers services running in containers, virtual machines, and cloud environments, then routes traffic to them. It supports multiple orchestrators and deployment models while providing load balancing, security controls, API management capabilities, and real-time observability without requiring configuration changes as infrastructure scales. |
| features.capabilities | `{"mtls":true,"hosting":"both","k8s_native":true,"oauth_oidc":true,"monetization":true,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true,"developer_portal":true,"plugin_ecosystem":"extensive","request_transformation":true}` | `{"hosting":"both","k8s_native":true,"oauth_oidc":true,"grpc_support":true,"monetization":true,"observability":true,"rate_limiting":true,"developer_portal":true,"plugin_ecosystem":"extensive","request_transformation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 11 | 19 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"AWS Bedrock"},{"name":"Azure Content Safety"},{"name":"Google Cloud Model Armor"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Llama 3"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Helm"},{"name":"Git"},{"name":"Stripe"},{"name":"Twilio"}]` | `[{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Docker Swarm"},{"name":"Consul"},{"name":"Etcd"},{"name":"Rancher"},{"name":"Amazon ECS"},{"name":"HashiCorp Nomad"},{"name":"Azure Service Fabric"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"Let's Encrypt"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Statsd"},{"name":"InfluxDB"},{"name":"Argo CD"},{"name":"OpenAPI"},{"name":"ModSecurity"},{"name":"Mesos"}]` |
| language.primary | Lua | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://konghq.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T11:10:49.823Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","summary":"Traefik Proxy is open source and free. Traefik Hub API Gateway and Traefik Hub API Management are commercial products requiring contact for pricing.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://traefik.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T11:09:13.148Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.transparent | no | no |
| release.cadence_days | 29 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.3","date":"2026-06-17T06:02:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.2","date":"2026-06-04T07:12:53Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.1","date":"2025-06-04T09:20:05Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.9.0","date":"2024-12-13T04:17:54Z","type":"stable","version":"3.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.8.1","date":"2024-11-18T20:52:27Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.8.0","date":"2024-09-11T09:19:15Z","type":"stable","version":"3.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/2.8.5","date":"2024-06-24T14:54:52Z","type":"stable","version":"2.8.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.7.1","date":"2024-06-21T09:38:32Z","type":"stable","version":"3.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.7.0","date":"2024-05-28T16:00:45Z","type":"stable","version":"3.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.6.1","date":"2024-03-04T14:19:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.6.0","date":"2024-02-09T22:08:50Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.5.0","date":"2023-11-08T09:50:40Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.2","date":"2023-10-12T10:50:05Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.1","date":"2023-10-03T10:33:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/2.8.4","date":"2023-09-20T23:03:15Z","type":"stable","version":"2.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.4.0","date":"2023-08-09T15:57:37Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.3.1","date":"2023-07-11T08:58:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.3.0","date":"2023-05-18T17:19:41Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.2.2","date":"2023-03-16T12:24:30Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Kong/kong/releases/tag/3.2.1","date":"2023-03-01T09:04:00Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.1"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.12","date":"2026-08-26T13:42:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.56","date":"2026-08-26T13:40:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.56"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.11","date":"2026-08-19T06:44:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.55","date":"2026-08-18T08:56:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.55"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.10","date":"2026-07-31T12:49:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.25","date":"2026-07-31T12:34:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.25"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.54","date":"2026-07-31T12:18:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.54"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.9","date":"2026-07-24T12:47:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.24","date":"2026-07-24T12:33:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.24"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.53","date":"2026-07-24T12:19:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.53"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.8","date":"2026-07-15T12:51:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.7","date":"2026-07-08T15:39:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.23","date":"2026-07-08T14:31:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.23"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.52","date":"2026-07-08T13:09:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.52"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.6","date":"2026-06-30T12:21:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.22","date":"2026-06-30T09:58:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.22"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.51","date":"2026-06-30T09:07:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.51"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.7.5","date":"2026-06-10T15:00:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.7.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v3.6.21","date":"2026-06-10T14:17:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.6.21"},{"url":"https://github.com/traefik/traefik/releases/tag/v2.11.50","date":"2026-06-10T13:41:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.11.50"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 7.4 | 6.4 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2FKong%2Fkong&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":51,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Ftraefik%2Ftraefik%2Fv2&per_page=100","last_12m":27,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (API Gateways)

| Capability | Kong Gateway | Traefik |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud + self-hosted |
| Kubernetes-native | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Traffic** |  |  |
| Rate limiting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Request/response transformation | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Security** |  |  |
| OAuth2 / OIDC / JWT | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mutual TLS | ✓ | - |
| **Protocols** |  |  |
| GraphQL gateway | - | - |
| gRPC support | - | ✓ |
| **Delivery** |  |  |
| Developer portal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monetization | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| Plugin ecosystem | Extensive | Extensive |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Observability | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:44:47.037Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*