Comparison

Cilium vs Google Traffic Director

On the evidence we track, Cilium leads this comparison with a composite score of 63/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Cilium63
Google Traffic Director52
Score
Vioscale score
Cilium63 / 100low · 42%
Google Traffic Director52 / 100low · 49%
Pricing
Free tier
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Model
Google Traffic Directorfreemium
Price level
Ciliumfree
Google Traffic Directorlow
Transparent
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Integrations
Count
Cilium
Google Traffic Director5
Security
Gdpr
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Scorecard
Cilium5.8
Google Traffic Director
Reliability
Status page
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Adoption
Dependent repos
Cilium103
Google Traffic Director
Github stars
Cilium25,013
Google Traffic Director
Activity
Commits last 30d
Cilium100
Google Traffic Director
Release
Cadence days
Cilium5
Google Traffic Director
History
Cilium20 items
Google Traffic Director
License
Spdx
Google Traffic Director
Language
Primary
CiliumGo
Google Traffic Director
Market
Availability
Cilium
Google Traffic DirectorAvailable worldwide · HQ US

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for service mesh. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Architecture
Data plane
CiliumSidecarless (eBPF)
Google Traffic Director-
Proxy
CiliumEnvoy
Google Traffic DirectorEnvoy
Security
Automatic mutual TLS
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
SPIFFE / SPIRE identity
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
Traffic
Traffic splitting / canary
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director
Fault injection / resilience
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
Scale
Multi-cluster federation
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Portability
VM support (beyond Kubernetes)
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director
Observability
Built-in observability
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Standards
Gateway API / GAMMA support
Cilium
Google Traffic Director-
Extensibility
WASM extensibility
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
Compliance
FIPS mode
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
Ecosystem
CNCF maturity
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director-
Ops
Commercial support / enterprise edition
Cilium-
Google Traffic Director

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Cilium

Leader

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.

Independently observed

Google Traffic Director

Cloud Service Mesh (formerly Anthos Service Mesh and Traffic Director) provides service mesh monitoring and management capabilities for Kubernetes and on-premises environments.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Cilium

Leader
Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Google Traffic Director

from $0.00/moUsage-based

Approximately $0.50 per client per month. Custom quotes available.

  • Pay-per-clientApproximately $0.50 per client per month
    • Telemetry dashboards with Cloud Service Mesh standard metrics
    • Managed control plane
    • Mesh CA (managed certificate authority) with no per-certificate charge
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Linux
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
CLI
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Self-hosted
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
On-premise
Cilium
Google Traffic Director
Hybrid
Cilium
Google Traffic Director

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

Cilium

Leader

Not documented yet.

Google Traffic Director

5 total
  • GKE
  • Compute Engine
  • Cloud Load Balancing
  • Istio
  • Cloud Storage
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.