Comparison

Consul vs Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

On the evidence we track, Consul leads this comparison with a composite score of 59/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

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★Consul59
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh50
Score
vioscaleAI score
Consul59 / 100high · 75%
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh50 / 100low · 26%
Pricing
Free tier
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Model
Consulfreemium
Red Hat OpenShift Service Meshcommercial
Price level
Consullow
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Integrations
Count
Consul1
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh8
Security
Disclosure policy
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓
Iso27001
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Scorecard
Consul7.5
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Soc2
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Reliability
Status page
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Consul67,699
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Github stars
Consul30,091
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Activity
Commits last 30d
Consul30
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Release
Cadence days
Consul15
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
History
Consul20 items
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Language
Primary
ConsulGo
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh–
Content
Faq
Consul4 items
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh3 items

Capabilities

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

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

What each one is

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

Consul

Leader

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.

Independently observed

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh is a management layer built on Istio that enables secure communication between microservices and provides visibility into their interactions. It includes built-in traffic management, mutual TLS encryption for zero-trust security, and support for running a single mesh across multiple Kubernetes clusters.

Independently observed

Pricing

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

Consul

Leader
HybridFree 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
macOS
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✗
Windows
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✗
Linux
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✗
CLI
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓
Self-hosted
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓
On-premise
Consul✓
Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh✓

Integrations

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

Consul

Leader
1 total
  • Kubernetes
Independently observed

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
Still deciding?

Consul or Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh: 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.