Open Source Friday with Kong's OpenMeter

Description

In this Open Source Friday episode, Teja from Kong explains Kong’s role as an API gateway and AI connectivity platform, then introduces OpenMeter, an open source project focused on usage-based metering and billing that became part of Kong in September 2025. He demos Kong Connect’s cloud UI by creating a serverless gateway to proxy a sample flights API, adding key authentication, creating a consumer, and then enabling metering and billing. The conversation covers why usage tracking is difficult at scale, including token-based AI pricing, mentions OpenMeter’s SDK for integrating with custom services, and shares ways to contribute via the OpenMeter repo, Kong community Slack, docs, and a blog post about monetizing an AI agent. 00:00 Welcome and Chat Setup 01:33 Meet Tesia at Kong 02:32 What Kong Does 04:20 Why OpenMeter Exists 08:14 Connect Cloud Demo Overview 09:38 Gateway and Route Setup 11:26 Add Auth and Consumer 13:04 Enable Metering and Pricing 17:12 Plans Subscriptions Invoices 20:32 Real World Use Cases 24:27 Contribute and Community 26:38 Blog Story and Wrap Up