# Cilium vs MOSN

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Cilium

| Attribute | Cilium | MOSN |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 62.8 (42% (low)) | 35.2 (54% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 103 | 22 |
| adoption.github_stars | 25,013 | 4,508 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | A cloud-native network proxy platform written in Go, open-sourced by Ant Group and production-verified at scale. Supports multi-protocol communication and can integrate with Istio for Service Mesh or operate independently as a load balancer, API gateway, or Ingress controller. |
| features.capabilities | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecarless_ebpf","multicluster":true,"gateway_api_support":true,"built_in_observability":true}` | `{"proxy":"envoy","data_plane":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"multicluster":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"wasm_extensibility":true,"built_in_observability":true}` |
| integrations.count | - | 6 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Skywalking"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Holmes"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cilium.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T09:27:47.184Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://mosn.io/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T18:17:43.403Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | 5 | 62 |
| 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"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.6.1","date":"2024-08-01T03:04:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.6.0","date":"2023-08-17T07:30:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.5.0","date":"2023-04-25T11:13:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.4.0","date":"2023-02-28T09:54:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.3.0","date":"2022-12-01T06:40:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.2.0","date":"2022-10-28T04:32:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.1.0","date":"2022-08-23T08:44:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.0.1","date":"2022-05-11T07:58:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v1.0.0","date":"2022-04-15T09:17:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.27.0","date":"2022-04-06T06:49:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.27.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.26.0","date":"2021-12-29T01:22:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.26.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.25.0","date":"2021-10-12T06:28:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.25.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.24.0","date":"2021-08-05T13:12:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.24.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.23.0","date":"2021-06-04T09:56:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.23.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.22.0","date":"2021-04-02T09:43:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.21.0","date":"2021-02-02T03:38:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.20.0","date":"2021-01-05T03:29:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.19.0","date":"2020-12-01T12:22:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.19.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.18.0","date":"2020-11-03T05:55:57Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.18.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/mosn/mosn/releases/tag/v0.17.0","date":"2020-09-30T07:15:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.17.0"}]` |
| security.scorecard | 5.8 | 3.4 |
| 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"}` | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=mosn.io%2Fmosn&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (Service Mesh)

| Capability | Cilium | MOSN |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Data plane | Sidecarless (eBPF) | 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 | - | - |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Commercial support / enterprise edition | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:21:31.649Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*