# Istio vs MOSN

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Istio

| Attribute | Istio | MOSN |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 57.2 (54% (medium)) | 35.2 (54% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 149 | 22 |
| adoption.github_stars | 38,355 | 4,508 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A platform that manages communication between microservices in Kubernetes environments, providing traffic control, security policies, and monitoring capabilities without requiring application changes | 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":"sidecar","vm_support":true,"cncf_maturity":"graduated","automatic_mtls":true,"traffic_splitting":true,"commercial_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 | 1 | 6 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"cert-manager"}]` | `[{"name":"Istio"},{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Skywalking"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Holmes"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://istio.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T21:53:50.466Z"}` | `{"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/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-rc.2","date":"2026-08-25T16:57:21Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-rc.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-rc.0","date":"2026-08-19T14:07:42Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-beta.2","date":"2026-08-19T13:05:52Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-beta.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-beta.1","date":"2026-08-17T12:46:22Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-beta.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-alpha.2","date":"2026-08-11T12:40:13Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-alpha.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.31.0-alpha.0","date":"2026-07-22T10:19:54Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.31.0-alpha.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.3","date":"2026-07-16T16:50:56Z","type":"stable","version":"1.30.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.29.6","date":"2026-07-16T16:51:06Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.28.10","date":"2026-07-01T10:31:11Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.2","date":"2026-06-24T18:25:13Z","type":"stable","version":"1.30.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.29.5","date":"2026-06-24T18:25:57Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.28.9","date":"2026-06-24T18:26:50Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.1","date":"2026-06-04T21:49:36Z","type":"stable","version":"1.30.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.29.4","date":"2026-06-04T21:51:28Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.28.8","date":"2026-06-04T21:50:17Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.0","date":"2026-05-18T19:05:52Z","type":"stable","version":"1.30.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.29.3","date":"2026-05-18T18:25:10Z","type":"stable","version":"1.29.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.28.7","date":"2026-05-18T18:24:56Z","type":"stable","version":"1.28.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.0-rc.0","date":"2026-05-05T22:03:55Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.30.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/istio/istio/releases/tag/1.30.0-beta.0","date":"2026-04-27T21:00:38Z","type":"prerelease","version":"1.30.0-beta.0"}]` | `[{"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.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 6.5 | 3.4 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":11,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=istio.io%2Fistio&per_page=100","last_12m":2,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` | `{"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 | Istio | MOSN |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **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: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:09:11.116Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*