# Azure Service Mesh vs Open Service Mesh

| Attribute | Azure Service Mesh | Open Service Mesh |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 53 (3% (low)) | 41.3 (54% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 15 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 2,550 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Istio-based service mesh add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that provides observability, traffic management, and security capabilities for distributed microservices architectures. It is indexed under Service Mesh.","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/istio-about","question":"What is Azure Service Mesh?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Azure Service Mesh is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/istio-about","question":"Is Azure Service Mesh free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Azure Service Mesh, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/istio-about","question":"Can Azure Service Mesh be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6}]` | `[{"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}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Istio-based service mesh add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that provides observability, traffic management, and security capabilities for distributed microservices architectures. | OSM deploys sidecar proxies alongside Kubernetes services to enable policy-based traffic management, automatic mutual TLS encryption, and built-in metrics for monitoring. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"multicluster":false,"cncf_maturity":"graduated","automatic_mtls":true,"fault_injection":true,"commercial_support":true,"gateway_api_support":false,"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}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/istio-about","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:36:53.281Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://openservicemesh.io/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-16T21:31:56.824Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | 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.scorecard | - | 4.8 |
| 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 | Azure Service Mesh | Open Service Mesh |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | Sidecar | Sidecar |
| 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 | Graduated | - |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | ✓ | - |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-09-21T02:32:50.434Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*