Calico Open Source vs Isovalent Enterprise for Cilium

Calico Open Source provides networking, network security, and observability for Kubernetes across multi-cloud, hybrid-cloud, and on-premises environments. It supports container, virtual machine, and bare-metal workloads with a shared security policy framework. The policy engine implements Kubernetes network policy features including AdminNetworkPolicy and BaselineAdminNetworkPolicy. Policies can use tiers, deny and log actions, NetworkSets, and cluster-wide global rules; Staged Policies allow teams to assess behavior before applying enforcement. Listed data planes include eBPF, iptables, nftables, Windows, and VPP. Whisker provides a visual way to view flow logs and analyze network communication. Calico can also manage WireGuard tunnels to encrypt pod traffic between Kubernetes nodes. Calico Ingress Gateway provides traffic control, load balancing, and ingress policy enforcement. The free plan includes unlimited clusters, with in-memory data retention and community-driven support and maintenance. Tigera describes deployments ranging from 10 to 10,000 or more nodes.

Isovalent Enterprise for Cilium is a paid, hardened distribution of Cilium, Hubble, and Tetragon, built and supported by Cilium’s creators. Cilium supplies network-layer connectivity and security across multi-cloud and on-premises environments. Enterprise policies include DNS-aware, Layer 7, and deny rules for fine-grained traffic control and micro-segmentation. Hubble provides real-time network-flow visibility, policy visualization, and an interface for troubleshooting and network management. Tetragon adds runtime enforcement and security observability, including protocol enforcement, IP and port whitelisting, and automatic application-aware policy generation. Cluster Mesh connects clusters across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and on-premises environments. The product also offers sidecar-free service communication and advanced load balancing. It runs on Linux in self-hosted environments, with hybrid deployment and a distributed control plane. Deployment guidance covers Azure Marketplace, an Azure Resource Manager template, and Azure CLI. Pricing is on request. Hubble UI, DNS Proxy HA, and Tetragon are not enabled by default for AKS creation or upgrades.