Cilium vs Linkerd
No clear leader: Linkerd (57.2) and Cilium (54.8) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.
Capabilities
Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for service mesh. “-” means undocumented, not absent.
What each one is
The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.
Cilium
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.
Linkerd
Infrastructure layer that enhances Kubernetes deployments with built-in security, monitoring, and reliability capabilities, requiring no modifications to existing applications.
Pricing
List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.
Platform & deployment
Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.
Integrations
What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.
- Prometheus
Cilium
- SPIRE
- Envoy
Linkerd
- Grafana
- Argo CD
- Jaeger
- Helm
- Gateway API
Cilium or Linkerd: which one depends on you
A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.