# Consul vs Gloo Mesh

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Consul

| Attribute | Consul | Gloo Mesh |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 58.6 (75% (high)) | 41.6 (33% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 30 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 67,699 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 30,091 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Consul provides service mesh, service discovery, API gateway, health checking, and dynamic configuration management for applications across distributed infrastructure. Available in open-source and enterprise editions. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://www.consul.io","question":"What is Consul?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Consul supports Windows, macOS, Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.consul.io","question":"What platforms does Consul support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Consul can be deployed on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.consul.io","question":"Can Consul be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and ISO 27001 for Consul. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Consul not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.consul.io/security","question":"What security certifications does Consul have?","confidence":0.7}]` | `[{"answer":"Gloo Mesh enables centralized control over traffic routing and security policies across multiple Kubernetes clusters with built-in observability. It provides unified management for distributed microservices architectures with support for secure-by-default communication patterns. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-mesh/","question":"What is Gloo Mesh?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Gloo Mesh does not publish its prices. Pricing is quoted on request, 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.solo.io/pricing","question":"How much does Gloo Mesh cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Gloo Mesh, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-mesh/","question":"Can Gloo Mesh be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 4 integrations for Gloo Mesh, including Istio, Envoy, Kubernetes and OpenTelemetry. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.solo.io/products/gloo-mesh/","question":"What does Gloo Mesh integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 for Gloo Mesh. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Gloo Mesh not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://trust.solo.io","question":"What security certifications does Gloo Mesh have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Gloo Mesh is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://www.solo.io/pricing","question":"Where is Gloo Mesh available?","confidence":0.75}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A platform that enables service discovery, configuration management, and secure service-to-service communication with automatic encryption and identity-based access control across distributed infrastructure. | Gloo Mesh enables centralized control over traffic routing and security policies across multiple Kubernetes clusters with built-in observability. It provides unified management for distributed microservices architectures with support for secure-by-default communication patterns. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"automatic_mtls":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":true,"wasm_extensibility":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"proxy":"envoy","fips_mode":true,"data_plane":"ambient","multicluster":true,"automatic_mtls":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | 1 | 3 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Kubernetes","native":true}]` | `[{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"AWS Marketplace","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | Go | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` | - |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.consul.io","retrievedAt":"2026-10-05T10:05:51.911Z"}` | `{"type":"quote","summary":"Custom pricing based on deployment environment and scale; contact sales for estimate","freeTier":false,"sourceUrl":"https://www.solo.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-09-23T14:42:14.833Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | no |
| pricing.model | freemium | quote |
| pricing.price_level | low | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | - | no |
| release.cadence_days | 15 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.1.0-rc1","date":"2026-09-29T05:22:27Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.1.0-rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.4","date":"2026-09-10T06:12:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.3","date":"2026-08-07T17:25:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.2","date":"2026-07-08T10:39:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.1","date":"2026-06-19T07:23:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.0","date":"2026-05-24T05:55:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc2","date":"2026-05-15T11:56:11Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.0.0-rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc1","date":"2026-04-29T17:34:24Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v2.0.0-rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.7","date":"2026-04-25T07:38:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.6","date":"2026-03-26T10:44:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.5","date":"2026-02-27T07:18:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.4","date":"2026-02-19T05:41:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.3","date":"2026-01-23T04:32:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/v1.22.2","date":"2025-12-17T11:57:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.22.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.22.0","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:41Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.20.9","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:20Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.20.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.20.8","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:17Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.20.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.20.13","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:37Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.20.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.20.12","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:33Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.20.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/hashicorp/consul/releases/tag/ent-changelog-1.20.11","date":"2025-12-02T02:25:29Z","type":"stable","version":"ent-changelog-1.20.11"}]` | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.certifications | - | `[{"name":"FIPS Certified Builds","status":"active"}]` |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | - | yes |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 7.5 | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |
| security.trust_center | - | https://www.solo.io/blog/compliance-zero-trust-istio-ambient-mesh |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fhashicorp%2Fconsul%2Fapi&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Consul | Gloo Mesh |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | Sidecar | Ambient |
| Proxy | Envoy | 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 | - | - |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:28:58.959Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*