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SPECIFICTION
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Kubeshark vs Mermin

Kubeshark

kubeshark.com

Mermin

github.com

Side by side

FigureKubesharkMermin
Price from$0.40/mo—
Free planYes—
Free trial——
Open sourceYes—
WebYes—
WindowsYes—
macOSYes—
LinuxYesYes
APIYes—
Self-hostedYesYes
Plans published60
Spec score · eBPF Observability Tools9.0 (#2)7.1 (#22)
deploymentKubeshark can be deployed with Helm in Kubernetes and supports self-hosted air-gapped operation on the Enterprise tier.Mermin runs as a Kubernetes DaemonSet with one pod per node, or as a privileged container on bare metal.
LicenseThe public repository and Homebrew formula identify Kubeshark as Apache License 2.0 software.Mermin is Apache 2.0 licensed except for its eBPF code, which is GPL-2.0 licensed.
protocolsKubeshark supports more than 23 protocols, including HTTP, HTTP/2, WebSocket, GraphQL, Kafka, AMQP, Redis, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, gRPC, DNS, ICMP, TCP, UDP, SCTP, LDAP, RADIUS, DIAMETER, and TLS.Mermin supports TCP, UDP, and ICMP traffic and lists VXLAN, Geneve, and WireGuard as common tunneling protocols.
SupportThe vendor says support is normally delivered through a dedicated Slack channel or by email at [email protected].The project directs users to GitHub Issues, GitHub Discussions, Slack, and documentation, and points to ElastiFlow for commercial support.

Plans

Kubeshark

  • CommunityFree
  • Enterprise$0.40 a month
  • Micro$30 a month
  • Pro$30 a month
  • Dynamic$190 a month
  • Small$360 a month

Kubeshark pricing →

Mermin

No plans published.

Mermin pricing →

In their own words

Kubeshark

Kubeshark indexes Kubernetes cluster network traffic at the kernel level using eBPF and makes it searchable with Kubernetes, API, and network context. It can decrypt TLS and service-mesh mTLS traffic without keys, certificates, sidecars, or application changes. Users can capture retrospective traffic snapshots, filter them by time, nodes, workloads, and IPs, then export PCAP files. Its KFL query language combines Kubernetes identity, API context, and network attributes. Kubeshark also provides an identity-aware service map and performance indicators for pods, services, nodes, and namespaces. It supports more than 23 protocols, including HTTP, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL, gRPC, and DNS. Cluster network data can be exposed through MCP to AI assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot. Deployment uses Helm in Kubernetes, and self-hosted air-gapped operation is listed for Enterprise. The free Community plan supports up to 3 nodes or 60 pods and requires internet connectivity. Paid plans start at $30/mo.

Visit kubeshark.com

Mermin

Mermin has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

Visit github.com