# Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd vs Cilium

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Cilium

| Attribute | Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd | Cilium |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 42.9 (40% (low)) | 55.8 (54% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 103 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 25,603 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd provides infrastructure-level security, observability, and multi-cluster capabilities for Kubernetes with automatic mutual TLS, SPIFFE identity integration, and FIPS compliance, without requiring application code changes. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://buoyant.io/","question":"What is Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd does not publish its prices. Pricing is quoted on request, across 3 plans (Open source, Premium and Strategic), so the figure depends on your seat count and requirements. We record this as a pricing-transparency signal rather than guessing a number. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.buoyant.io/blog/pod-based-pricing-for-buoyant-enterprise-for-linkerd","question":"How much does Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://buoyant.io/","question":"What platforms does Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://buoyant.io/","question":"Can Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 5 integrations for Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd, including Datadog, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, Prometheus and OpenTelemetry. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.buoyant.io/blog/pod-based-pricing-for-buoyant-enterprise-for-linkerd","question":"What does Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed HIPAA and GDPR for Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://buoyant.io/","question":"What security certifications does Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd have?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://www.buoyant.io/blog/pod-based-pricing-for-buoyant-enterprise-for-linkerd","question":"Where is Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"A cloud-native networking and security platform that uses eBPF to provide networking, observability, and security capabilities. Built for Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure with integrated observability via Hubble. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://cilium.io","question":"What is Cilium?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Cilium is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://cilium.io","question":"Is Cilium free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Cilium supports Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://cilium.io","question":"What platforms does Cilium support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Cilium can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://cilium.io","question":"Can Cilium be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 3 integrations for Cilium, including SPIRE, Envoy and Prometheus. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://cilium.io","question":"What does Cilium integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Cilium is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium","question":"Is Cilium open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A CNCF-graduated service mesh that adds automatic encryption, traffic management, and observability to Kubernetes clusters without requiring application code modifications. | Cilium is an open-source networking layer for Kubernetes that uses eBPF to provide container-to-container communication, load balancing, network policies, multi-cluster connectivity, and deep observability across single or multiple clusters. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"linkerd2","fips_mode":true,"data_plane":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"cncf_maturity":"graduated","automatic_mtls":true,"fault_injection":true,"spiffe_identity":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecarless_ebpf","multicluster":true,"cncf_maturity":"graduated","spiffe_identity":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | 3 | 3 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"}]` | `[{"name":"SPIRE","native":false,"category":"identity","direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Envoy","native":false,"category":"proxy"},{"name":"Prometheus","native":false,"category":"monitoring","direction":"outbound"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"quote","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open source","features":["Zero-config encryption and authentication of all meshed traffic","Cryptographic workload identities, not IP addresses","Secure-by-default Rust data plane","Zero-trust granular authorization policies","Latency-based load balancing","Timeouts and retries","Circuit breaking","gRPC load balancing","Blue-green / canary deploys","L7-aware request routing","Transparent multi-cluster communication","Federated services","Uniform L7 metrics including success rates and latency distributions","Easy export to any Prometheus-compatible metrics store","Distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry)","Egress metrics","Gateway API support","Mutual TLS (mTLS) with TLS 1.3","IPv6","Buoyant Linkerd Public Forums"],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Premium","features":["Stable release artifacts","Automated installs and upgrades","SLAs on CVE remediation","Mutual TLS and basic service mesh featureset","Multi-cluster communication","L7 network security policies","Automatic cross-cluster failover","Support for Linux VM workloads","Security policy generation from live traffic","VM application management and automation","On cluster single pane of glass dashboard","Software Bills-of-Materials (SBOMs) for all components","Private support ticketing","Architecture review and best practice guidance"],"description":"For companies standardizing on security, high availability, and multi-cluster communication.","contactSales":true},{"free":false,"name":"Strategic","features":["Everything in Premium, plus:","Hotpatch releases and SBOMs","High Availability Zone-aware Load Balancing (HAZL)","FIPS 140-3 and 140-2 validated cryptography (optional)","Enterprise support with 24x7 SLAs","30-day white glove onboarding"],"description":"For enterprises with special security, compliance, and additional operational requirements.","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Buoyant Cloud Management"},{"name":"Continuous health checking"},{"name":"Datadog/Teams/PagerDuty alerts and metrics integration"},{"name":"High Availability Zone-aware Load Balancing (HAZL)"}],"summary":"Free tier for companies under 50 employees; Premium and Strategic tiers available by quote","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.buoyant.io/blog/pod-based-pricing-for-buoyant-enterprise-for-linkerd","retrievedAt":"2026-08-16T21:36:01.639Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cilium.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T09:27:47.184Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 5 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.21.0-pre.3","date":"2026-10-02T19:04:57Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.21.0-pre.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.2","date":"2026-09-16T01:53:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.20.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.8","date":"2026-09-16T01:53:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.14","date":"2026-09-16T01:53:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.21.0-pre.2","date":"2026-09-09T11:50:23Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.21.0-pre.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.1","date":"2026-08-18T10:36:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.20.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.7","date":"2026-08-18T10:35:54Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.13","date":"2026-08-18T10:35:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.21.0-pre.0","date":"2026-08-03T19:58:45Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.21.0-pre.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0","date":"2026-07-29T15:00:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-rc.1","date":"2026-07-21T23:28:11Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.6","date":"2026-07-16T22:52:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.12","date":"2026-07-16T22:47:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.17.18","date":"2026-07-16T22:47:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.17.18"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-rc.0","date":"2026-07-14T02:52:53Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-pre.4","date":"2026-07-03T20:50:44Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-pre.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.5","date":"2026-06-16T12:25:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.11","date":"2026-06-16T12:22:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.17.17","date":"2026-06-16T12:22:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.17.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-pre.3","date":"2026-06-02T00:41:32Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-pre.3"}]` |
| security.certifications | `[{"name":"FIPS 140-2/3","level":"140-2/3","status":"active"}]` | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 5.8 |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":39,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fcilium%2Fcilium&per_page=100","last_12m":8,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd | Cilium |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | Sidecar | Sidecarless (eBPF) |
| Proxy | linkerd2-proxy | Envoy |
| **Security** |  |  |
| Automatic mutual TLS | ✓ | - |
| SPIFFE / SPIRE identity | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Traffic** |  |  |
| Traffic splitting / canary | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fault injection / resilience | ✓ | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Multi-cluster federation | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Portability** |  |  |
| VM support (beyond Kubernetes) | ✓ | - |
| **Observability** |  |  |
| Built-in observability | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| Gateway API / GAMMA support | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Extensibility** |  |  |
| WASM extensibility | - | - |
| **Compliance** |  |  |
| FIPS mode | ✓ | - |
| **Ecosystem** |  |  |
| CNCF maturity | Graduated | Graduated |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | ✓ | - |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T21:00:31.719Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*