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SPECIFICTION
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Flomesh Service Mesh

flomesh.io

Free plan macOSLinuxSelf-hosted
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Spec score 8.0 #5 of 22 in Service Mesh Platforms

What it is

Flomesh Service Mesh (FSM) provides traffic management and service governance for microservices running on Kubernetes. It uses the Flomesh Pipy proxy, which is automatically added as a sidecar to onboarded applications. FSM supports traffic shifting, ingress and egress, and Kubernetes Gateway API capabilities, along with HTTP, TCP, gRPC and MQTT traffic. For service security, it enables mutual TLS and fine-grained access policies. Certificate management can use Tresor, cert-manager or HashiCorp Vault. Documentation marks Prometheus and Grafana integrations as stable and Jaeger distributed tracing as beta; integration guides also cover Dapr and discovery registries such as Consul, Eureka and Nacos. FSM supports x86 and ARM architectures and multi-cluster Kubernetes connectivity through the MCS API, though multicluster is marked alpha. It is open source, free and self-hosted, with Kubernetes and OpenShift listed. Installation requires Kubernetes 1.19 or later; version 1.1 is listed for Kubernetes 1.19 through 1.24.

Spec sheet

Purpose
FSM provides traffic management and service governance for microservices running on Kubernetes.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Security
FSM enables mutual TLS for service-to-service communication and fine-grained service access policies.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Architectures
The product documentation says FSM supports x86 and ARM architectures.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Certificates
FSM supports certificate management through its Tresor implementation, cert-manager, and HashiCorp Vault.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
CLI platforms
The setup guide provides FSM CLI downloads for GNU/Linux and macOS.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Gateway API limitation
The compatibility guide says ReferenceGrant is not supported and several Gateway API resources are only partially supported.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Kubernetes requirement
The installation guide requires Kubernetes 1.19 or later and lists version 1.1 support for Kubernetes 1.19 through 1.24.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Multi-cluster
FSM supports multi-cluster Kubernetes service connectivity using the MCS API, while its feature lifecycle page marks multicluster as alpha.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Observability
The documentation lists Prometheus and Grafana integrations as stable and distributed tracing with Jaeger as beta.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Other integrations
Integration guides cover Dapr, Prometheus, and microservice discovery, including Consul, Eureka, and Nacos registries.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Protocols
FSM documents support for HTTP, TCP, gRPC, and MQTT traffic protocols.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Proxy
FSM uses the Flomesh Pipy proxy and automatically injects it as a sidecar into onboarded applications.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Security configuration note
The application prerequisites guide says FSM's init container runs as root and adds the NET_ADMIN capability.Read 3 Oct 2026 · release-v1-1.fsm-docs.flomesh.io
Traffic management
FSM supports traffic shifting, ingress and egress, and Kubernetes Gateway API capabilities.Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io

Plans and prices

Flomesh Service Mesh (FSM) Free Open source service mesh for Kubernetes · pricing not stated on the opened pages Read 3 Oct 2026 · fsm-docs.flomesh.io

Every Flomesh Service Mesh plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Open source and free to use.
  • Automatically injects the Pipy proxy as a sidecar.
  • Supports HTTP, TCP, gRPC and MQTT.
  • Provides mutual TLS and fine-grained access policies.
  • Supports x86 and ARM architectures.

Limits

  • Requires Kubernetes 1.19 or later.
  • Jaeger tracing is marked beta.
  • Multicluster support is marked alpha.
  • ReferenceGrant is not supported.

Who it suits

FSM suits teams running microservices on Kubernetes or OpenShift that need traffic controls and service governance. It is for teams prepared to self-host and manage Kubernetes requirements.

Verdict

FSM brings traffic management, service security and certificate options to Kubernetes microservices in a self-hosted package. Check its Kubernetes version requirements and the lifecycle status of features such as multicluster and Jaeger tracing.

Where Specifiction places it

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