# Aeraki Mesh vs Kong Mesh

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Kong Mesh

| Attribute | Aeraki Mesh | Kong Mesh |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 23.2 (36% (low)) | 59.3 (39% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 0 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 11 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Aeraki Mesh is an open-source project for managing layer-7 protocols in a service mesh, supporting Dubbo, Thrift, Redis, Kafka, ZooKeeper, and custom protocols through the MetaProtocol framework. | Kong Inc. is the leading AI connectivity company, delivering the ultra-low-latency infrastructure enterprises need to secure, govern, and scale both traditional APIs and complex agentic AI workloads. Through a single unified control plane, Kong seamlessly unifies API management, service mesh, and AI gateway infrastructure to transform unmanaged traffic risks into a controlled, production-ready enterprise capability. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecar","cncf_maturity":"sandbox","automatic_mtls":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":false,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"automatic_mtls":true,"fault_injection":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | 6 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Dubbo"},{"name":"Thrift"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"ZooKeeper"}]` | - |
| language.primary | JavaScript | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | - |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source, free","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aeraki.net/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T18:18:59.357Z"}` | - |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.pci | - | yes |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Aeraki Mesh | Kong 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 | Sandbox | - |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | ✗ | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:15:06.604Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*