ONOS vs OpenDaylight
ONOS
onosproject.orgOpenDaylight
opendaylight.orgSide by side
| Figure | ONOS | OpenDaylight |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Data Center Fabric Software | 8.2 (#1) | 7.6 (#3) |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Networking Software | 8.2 (#2) | 7.6 (#7) |
| Spec score · Network Automation Software | 8.1 (#6) | 7.5 (#16) |
| License | The ONOS wiki says the project is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. | The technical charter says outbound code is made available under the Eclipse Public License 1.0, with documentation under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. |
| Purpose | ONOS provides the control plane for software-defined networks, managing network components and running software modules that provide communication services. | OpenDaylight is an open source SDN controller for centralized, programmable network control and monitoring. |
| Security | The project wiki describes a Security Mode feature intended to restrict application access to northbound APIs. | The AAA project provides authentication, authorization, accounting, and role-based access control for OpenDaylight northbound interfaces. |
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.
OpenDaylight
OpenDaylight is a free, open-source SDN controller for centralized, programmable network control and monitoring. Its modular design uses YANG models and MD-SAL to connect applications with network hardware through northbound REST APIs and southbound plugins. Listed protocol support includes OpenFlow, NETCONF, BGP-LS, PCEP, OVSDB, LISP, and SNMP, among others. Clustering, sharded data stores, and leader-based consensus support scaling across nodes. The project describes uses in optical transport, service-provider WAN automation, data center SDN, network telemetry, enterprise network control, and ONAP. Its AAA project provides authentication, authorization, accounting, and role-based access control for northbound interfaces. OpenDaylight is self-hosted and runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows; setup requires Java 21 or later. The downloads page identifies Chromium-SR0 as the current release and lists Vanadium-SR1 and Titanium-SR3 under supported releases. Documentation, Zulip chat, mailing lists, a wiki, and weekly Technical Steering Committee meetings are listed as community resources.