Comparison

Cilium vs NGINX Service Mesh

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
NGINX Service Mesh47
Score
Vioscale score
Cilium63 / 100low · 42%
NGINX Service Mesh47 / 100low · 48%
Pricing
Free tier
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Model
NGINX Service Meshcommercial
Price level
Ciliumfree
NGINX Service Meshlow
Transparent
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Integrations
Count
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh3
Reliability
Status page
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Adoption
Dependent repos
Cilium103
NGINX Service Mesh
Github stars
Cilium25,013
NGINX Service Mesh
Activity
Commits last 30d
Cilium100
NGINX Service Mesh
Release
Cadence days
Cilium5
NGINX Service Mesh
History
Cilium20 items
NGINX Service Mesh
License
Spdx
NGINX Service Mesh
Language
Primary
CiliumGo
NGINX Service Mesh

Capabilities

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

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

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

NGINX Service Mesh

F5 NGINX delivers, secures, and scales apps, APIs, Kubernetes services, and AI workloads through a lightweight, high-performance solution designed for distributed, hybrid multi-cloud environments. Standardizes traffic routing, security, and observability across 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 ↗

NGINX Service Mesh

SubscriptionFree tier

Subscription and flex consumption models available. Free trials offered.

as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

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

Platforms
Linux
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
CLI
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Self-hosted
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh
Hybrid
Cilium
NGINX Service Mesh

Integrations

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

Cilium

Leader

Not documented yet.

NGINX Service Mesh

3 total
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • Kubernetes
Independently observed

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