# Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd vs Cilium

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Cilium

| Attribute | Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd | Cilium |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 38.8 (42% (low)) | 62.8 (42% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 103 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 25,013 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An enterprise service mesh that automatically manages and secures communication between containerized workloads in Kubernetes clusters through zero-configuration mutual TLS, traffic optimization, and observability—without code changes or complex setup. | A cloud-native networking and security platform that uses eBPF to provide networking, observability, and security capabilities. Built for Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure with integrated observability via Hubble. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"linkerd2","fips_mode":true,"data_plane":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"cncf_maturity":"graduated","automatic_mtls":true,"fault_injection":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_support":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecarless_ebpf","multicluster":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | 3 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"}]` | - |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"quote","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open source","features":["Zero-config encryption and authentication of all meshed traffic","Cryptographic workload identities, not IP addresses","Secure-by-default Rust data plane","Zero-trust granular authorization policies","Latency-based load balancing","Timeouts and retries","Circuit breaking","gRPC load balancing","Blue-green / canary deploys","L7-aware request routing","Transparent multi-cluster communication","Federated services","Uniform L7 metrics including success rates and latency distributions","Easy export to any Prometheus-compatible metrics store","Distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry)","Egress metrics","Gateway API support","Mutual TLS (mTLS) with TLS 1.3","IPv6","Buoyant Linkerd Public Forums"],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Premium","features":["Stable release artifacts","Automated installs and upgrades","SLAs on CVE remediation","Mutual TLS and basic service mesh featureset","Multi-cluster communication","L7 network security policies","Automatic cross-cluster failover","Support for Linux VM workloads","Security policy generation from live traffic","VM application management and automation","On cluster single pane of glass dashboard","Software Bills-of-Materials (SBOMs) for all components","Private support ticketing","Architecture review and best practice guidance"],"description":"For companies standardizing on security, high availability, and multi-cluster communication.","contactSales":true},{"free":false,"name":"Strategic","features":["Everything in Premium, plus:","Hotpatch releases and SBOMs","High Availability Zone-aware Load Balancing (HAZL)","FIPS 140-3 and 140-2 validated cryptography (optional)","Enterprise support with 24x7 SLAs","30-day white glove onboarding"],"description":"For enterprises with special security, compliance, and additional operational requirements.","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Buoyant Cloud Management"},{"name":"Continuous health checking"},{"name":"Datadog/Teams/PagerDuty alerts and metrics integration"},{"name":"High Availability Zone-aware Load Balancing (HAZL)"}],"summary":"Free tier for companies under 50 employees; Premium and Strategic tiers available by quote","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.buoyant.io/blog/pod-based-pricing-for-buoyant-enterprise-for-linkerd","retrievedAt":"2026-08-16T21:36:01.639Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cilium.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T09:27:47.184Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | quote | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 5 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.1","date":"2026-08-18T10:36:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.20.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.7","date":"2026-08-18T10:35:54Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.13","date":"2026-08-18T10:35:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.21.0-pre.0","date":"2026-08-03T19:58:45Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.21.0-pre.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0","date":"2026-07-29T15:00:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-rc.1","date":"2026-07-21T23:28:11Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.6","date":"2026-07-16T22:52:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.12","date":"2026-07-16T22:47:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.17.18","date":"2026-07-16T22:47:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.17.18"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-rc.0","date":"2026-07-14T02:52:53Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-pre.4","date":"2026-07-03T20:50:44Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-pre.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.5","date":"2026-06-16T12:25:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.11","date":"2026-06-16T12:22:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.17.17","date":"2026-06-16T12:22:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.17.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-pre.3","date":"2026-06-02T00:41:32Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-pre.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.4","date":"2026-05-13T18:44:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.18.10","date":"2026-05-13T18:43:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.18.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.17.16","date":"2026-05-13T18:43:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.17.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.20.0-pre.2","date":"2026-05-04T23:42:00Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.20.0-pre.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/cilium/cilium/releases/tag/v1.19.3","date":"2026-04-15T21:06:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.19.3"}]` |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 5.8 |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":37,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fcilium%2Fcilium&per_page=100","last_12m":6,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Buoyant Enterprise for Linkerd | Cilium |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | Sidecar | Sidecarless (eBPF) |
| Proxy | linkerd2-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 | Graduated | - |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | ✓ | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:14:46.218Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*