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Cilium

eBPF-powered connectivity and security management for cloud-native applications

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Also known as
cilium

What is Cilium?

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.

Independently observed

Cilium pricing

We don't have Cilium's full plan breakdown yet (its pricing page resisted automated reading). Here's what we could confirm. Always check live pricing for exact numbers.

What Cilium does

The capabilities that matter for service mesh, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.

Architecture
Data plane
Sidecarless (eBPF)
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
-
Ops
Commercial support / enterprise edition
-
Independently observed

Platform & deployment

Independently observed
Platforms
  • CLI
  • Linux
Deployment
  • Cloud / SaaS
  • Self-hosted

Integrations (3)

Independently observed
identity
  • SPIRE←
proxy
  • Envoy
monitoring
  • Prometheus→

Security & compliance

Known vulnerabilities: 38 (7 in the last 12 months), max severity CRITICAL sourcea count reflects scale & disclosure, not quality

Cilium FAQ

Common questions about Cilium, answered from independent, dated evidence.

What is Cilium?

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. It is indexed under Service Mesh.

Source: https://cilium.io

Is Cilium free to use?

Cilium 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://cilium.io

What platforms does Cilium support?

Cilium supports Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.

Source: https://cilium.io

Can Cilium be self-hosted?

Yes. Cilium can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.

Source: https://cilium.io

What does Cilium integrate with?

We have confirmed 3 integrations for Cilium, including SPIRE, Envoy and Prometheus. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.

Source: https://cilium.io

Is Cilium open source?

Yes. Cilium 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/cilium/cilium

Cilium alternatives

Other service mesh we track, ranked by the same independent score.

All Cilium alternatives, ranked →

Compare Cilium

Side by side against other service mesh, attribute by attribute, with a source on every value.

Independent · unbought · dated

The vioscaleAI score: one lens on the evidence

Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Cilium, not the verdict.

Balanced composite 55 / 100
medium · 55%
Signal contributions to the composite score
SignalScoreWeightContributionEvidence
Development activity630.095.9✓
Release cadence970.055.1✓
Capabilities670.064.2✓
Security score580.042.4✓
Stars830.032.2✓
Dependent projects340.062.1✓
Integrations170.071.3✓
Security posture00.120.0-
Package downloads00.140.0-
Developer Q&A activity00.060.0-

Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.

All data & sourcesshow ↓

Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.

Activity

AttributeValueEvidence
Commits last 30d100mediumsource · 2026-09-07 · 65%

Adoption

AttributeValueEvidence
Github stars25,092highsource · 2026-09-07 · 90%
Dependent repos103highsource · 2026-09-07 · 85%

Content

AttributeValueEvidence
Faq6 itemsmediumsource · 2026-09-10 · 66%

Features

AttributeValueEvidence
CapabilitiesProxy: envoy · Data plane: sidecarless_ebpf · Multicluster: Yes · Spiffe identity: Yes · Gateway api support: Yes · Built in observability: Yesmediumsource · 2026-09-07 · 60%

Integrations

AttributeValueEvidence
Count3mediumsource · 2026-09-07 · 60%

Language

AttributeValueEvidence
PrimaryGohighsource · 2026-09-07 · 90%

License

AttributeValueEvidence
SpdxApache-2.0highsource · 2026-09-07 · 95%

Pricing

AttributeValueEvidence
Free tierYesmediumsource · 2026-08-13 · 60%
Modelopen_sourcemediumsource · 2026-08-13 · 60%
Price levelfreemediumsource · 2026-08-13 · 60%
TransparentYesmediumsource · 2026-08-13 · 60%

Release

AttributeValueEvidence
Cadence days5mediumsource · 2026-09-07 · 70%
History20 itemsmediumsource · 2026-09-07 · 70%

Security

AttributeValueEvidence
Scorecard5.8highsource · 2026-09-07 · 90%
VulnerabilitiesCount: 38 · Source: https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fcilium%2Fcilium&per_page=100 · Last 12m: 7 · Max severity: CRITICALhighsource · 2026-09-07 · 90%
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