ONOS vs Open Virtual Network
ONOS
onosproject.orgOpen Virtual Network
ovn.orgSide by side
| Figure | ONOS | Open Virtual Network |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Data Center Fabric Software | 8.2 (#1) | 7.3 (#5) |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Networking Software | 8.2 (#2) | 7.3 (#13) |
| Audience | ONOS is designed as an SDN platform for controlling service provider networks, with the architecture documentation also identifying data center and campus networks as possible uses. | OVN is intended to be used by cloud management software. |
| Purpose | ONOS provides the control plane for software-defined networks, managing network components and running software modules that provide communication services. | OVN is a system that supports logical network abstraction in virtual machine and container environments. |
| Security | The project wiki describes a Security Mode feature intended to restrict application access to northbound APIs. | OVN’s security process directs vulnerability reports to the ovs-security mailing list for coordinated handling. |
Plans
In their own words
ONOS
ONOS is an open-source software-defined networking platform that provides a control plane for managing network components and running communication-service modules. Its µONOS architecture supports device configuration, monitoring and maintenance, forwarding-plane programming, topology validation, and fine-grained performance metrics. A symmetric cluster of identical instances distributes work across servers and is designed to handle instance failures; the architecture is described as highly available and dynamically scalable. Control and configuration interfaces include P4/P4Runtime, gNMI/OpenConfig, and gNOI, with gRPC connecting modular microservices. OpenFlow is the primary southbound protocol, and OVSDB, NETCONF, and SNMP are also named for device configuration. The microservices are designed for cloud and data center infrastructure using Kubernetes, with Docker images and Helm charts listed as deployment tools. A cloud-native web GUI uses Angular and gRPC Web to access backend modules. ONOS is free and published under the Apache License 2.0. It is aimed mainly at service-provider networks, with data-center and campus networks also identified as possible uses. Production downloads are recommended as a release tar.gz package or Docker image; the listed LTS release is X-Wing 2.7.0, dated July 16, 2021.
Open Virtual Network
Open Virtual Network (OVN) provides logical networking for virtual machine and container environments, intended for cloud management software. It converts virtual network configurations into OpenFlow and organizes them around logical routers and switches. Listed capabilities include distributed virtual routers and logical switches, access control lists, DHCP, and a DNS server. Tunnels or other encapsulations isolate logical networks from physical and virtual networks, allowing overlapping address spaces. Virtual machines can move between physical machines without network disruption, and gateways connect tunnel-based logical networks to physical networks. Examples of cloud-management integrations include OpenStack Neutron’s ml2/ovn plugin and ovn-kubernetes. OVN runs in userspace, needs no kernel modules, and is written in platform-independent C; its generic build guide covers Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD hosts. It is free under the Apache 2 license, with on-premises deployment, a centralized control plane, and a Linux and self-hosted platform listing. OpenSSL libssl is optional but recommended for secure connections to OVN database servers.