Comparison

Cilium vs Red Hat OpenShift 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
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh51
Score
Vioscale score
Cilium63 / 100low · 42%
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh51 / 100low · 26%
Pricing
Free tier
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Model
Red Hat OpenShift Service Meshcommercial
Price level
Ciliumfree
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Transparent
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Integrations
Count
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh8
Security
Disclosure policy
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Scorecard
Cilium5.8
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Reliability
Status page
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Adoption
Dependent repos
Cilium103
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Github stars
Cilium25,013
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Activity
Commits last 30d
Cilium100
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Release
Cadence days
Cilium5
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
History
Cilium20 items
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
License
Spdx
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Language
Primary
CiliumGo
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

Capabilities

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

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

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

Not documented yet.

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 ↗

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

Pricing not documented yet.

Platform & deployment

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

Platforms
Linux
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
CLI
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
Self-hosted
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh
On-premise
Cilium
Red Hat OpenShift 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.

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

8 total
  • Istio
  • Envoy
  • Kiali
  • Red Hat Connectivity Link
  • Red Hat OpenShift Observability
  • cert-manager Operator for Red Hat OpenShift
  • Red Hat OpenShift Gitops
  • Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization
Independently observed

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