# Kong Mesh vs Open Service Mesh

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Kong Mesh

| Attribute | Kong Mesh | Open Service Mesh |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 57.6 (38% (low)) | 41.3 (53% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 15 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 2,553 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Kong Mesh provides centralized control for service-to-service communication with built-in encryption, security policies, and observability. It enables zero-trust security and traffic management across Kubernetes clusters and on-premises deployments without requiring developers to implement these capabilities in their applications. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://konghq.com/products/kong-mesh","question":"What is Kong Mesh?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Kong Mesh supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://konghq.com/products/kong-mesh","question":"What platforms does Kong Mesh support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Kong Mesh can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://konghq.com/products/kong-mesh","question":"Can Kong Mesh be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Kong Mesh. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Kong Mesh not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://konghq.com/compliance","question":"What security certifications does Kong Mesh have?","confidence":0.7}]` | `[{"answer":"Manages traffic, enforces access policies, and provides operational visibility for microservices running in Kubernetes clusters. Emphasizes simplicity in installation and maintenance through standardized configuration interfaces. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://openservicemesh.io/","question":"What is Open Service Mesh?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Open Service Mesh is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://openservicemesh.io/","question":"Is Open Service Mesh free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Open Service Mesh supports Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://openservicemesh.io/","question":"What platforms does Open Service Mesh support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Open Service Mesh can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://openservicemesh.io/","question":"Can Open Service Mesh be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 8 integrations for Open Service Mesh, including Envoy, Linkerd, Istio, Consul, Kuma, Helm, SMI specification and external certificate management systems. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://openservicemesh.io/","question":"What does Open Service Mesh integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Open Service Mesh is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm","question":"Is Open Service Mesh open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Enterprise service mesh that provides centralized connectivity and security management for services across diverse deployment environments. Enables Zero Trust security, traffic management, and consistent policy enforcement through a unified control plane. | A cloud-native service mesh that injects Envoy proxies to manage traffic, enforce security policies, and provide observability across microservice environments on Kubernetes. It uses SMI APIs for configuration and supports automatic mutual TLS. |
| features.capabilities | `{"vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"automatic_mtls":true,"fault_injection":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"proxy":"envoy","fips_mode":true,"data_plane":"sidecar","automatic_mtls":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | - | 8 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"Linkerd"},{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Consul"},{"name":"Kuma"},{"name":"Helm"},{"name":"SMI specification"},{"name":"external certificate management systems"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | - | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://openservicemesh.io/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-16T21:31:56.824Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | - | free |
| release.cadence_days | - | 12 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.4","date":"2023-04-20T21:24:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.4","date":"2023-04-20T21:15:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.3","date":"2022-12-14T23:49:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.2","date":"2022-10-21T19:08:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.3","date":"2022-10-20T21:42:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.1","date":"2022-09-07T00:12:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.2","date":"2022-09-06T23:42:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.0","date":"2022-07-20T21:58:57Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.2.0-rc.1","date":"2022-07-12T19:43:08Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.2.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.1","date":"2022-05-10T16:14:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.1-rc.1","date":"2022-05-04T21:17:30Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.1.1-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.0","date":"2022-04-14T19:48:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.1.0-rc.1","date":"2022-04-04T21:57:23Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.1.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.0.0","date":"2022-02-01T19:20:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.4","date":"2022-01-19T22:38:08Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.0.0-rc.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.3","date":"2022-01-10T19:20:43Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.0.0-rc.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.2","date":"2021-11-15T17:26:39Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.0.0-rc.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v0.11.1","date":"2021-10-20T20:37:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.11.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v0.11.1-rc.1","date":"2021-10-15T23:22:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.11.1-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openservicemesh/osm/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.1","date":"2021-10-13T18:17:50Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.0.0-rc.1"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 4.8 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | https://konghq.com/blog/product-releases/trust-what-youre-shipping-with-insomnia-v12 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fopenservicemesh%2Fosm&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Kong Mesh | Open Service Mesh |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | - | Sidecar |
| Proxy | - | 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 2026-10-17T13:37:13.666Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*