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Kuma

B
B tier on Service Mesh PlatformsScore 7.1 · #3 of 16
Android app
Not listed
Free plan
Yes
Runs on
api, Linux, Mac, self-hosted, Web
kuma.io
The Kuma homepage
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Summary

Kuma is a free, open-source control plane for managing service meshes and microservices. It supports Kubernetes, virtual machines, and bare-metal environments, with single-zone or multi-zone deployments spanning clouds, regions, and Kubernetes clusters. One control plane can serve multiple individual meshes. Traffic policies cover HTTP and TCP routing, health checks, circuit breaking, retries, timeouts, fault injection, and rate limiting. Security features include mutual TLS and mesh traffic permissions. For observability, Kuma provides service maps, traces, access logs, metrics, and OpenTelemetry, with integrations described for Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, and Datadog. Its interfaces include Kubernetes CRDs, a GUI, REST API, and CLI; Envoy is bundled as the data-plane proxy. Kuma is self-hosted. The Kubernetes quickstart describes its GUI as read-only, while production guidance addresses secrets, API controls and authentication, certificates, proxy membership, and Kubernetes RBAC.

Who it is for

Kuma suits teams managing service meshes across Kubernetes, VMs, or bare metal, including multi-zone or multi-mesh setups. It is aimed at teams comfortable with self-hosted software and its production security considerations.

What is good

  • Free open-source control plane.
  • Supports Kubernetes, VMs, and bare metal.
  • Single or multi-zone deployment options.
  • Includes mutual TLS and mesh permissions.
  • Offers CRDs, GUI, REST API, and CLI.

What to know first

  • Self-hosted deployment model.
  • Quickstart GUI is read-only.
  • Production use involves security configuration.

Verdict

Kuma brings traffic management, security, and observability features into a control plane for varied infrastructure. Its self-hosted model and read-only GUI in the Kubernetes quickstart are important to weigh.

Kuma plans and pricing

All plans
Open source Free Open-source control plane; supports Kubernetes, VMs, and bare metal kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026

Compared on service mesh platforms

Deployment model
self_hostedkuma.io
Proxy architecture
sidecarkuma.io
mTLS support
Yeskuma.io
Traffic policies
Yeskuma.io
Multi-cluster support
Yeskuma.io
Supported platforms
Kubernetes, OpenShift, Universal (VMs), bare metalkuma.io

Facts

Purpose
Kuma is an open-source control plane for service mesh and microservices management.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Workloads
It supports Kubernetes, virtual machines, and bare-metal environments.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Deployment
Kuma supports single-zone and multi-zone deployments across clouds, regions, and Kubernetes clusters.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Multi-mesh
One control plane can support multiple individual meshes.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Security
Listed security features include multi-mesh, mutual TLS, and mesh traffic permissions.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Observability
Listed observability features include service maps, traces, access logs, metrics, and OpenTelemetry.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Integrations
Kuma's observability documentation describes integrations with Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, and Datadog.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Interface
Kuma provides native Kubernetes CRDs, a GUI, a REST API, and a CLI.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Runtime
Kuma bundles Envoy as its data plane proxy.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Install
The installation guide provides Linux and macOS downloads and documents installing the CLI on macOS with Homebrew.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Deployment security
Production guidance covers secrets management, API access control, API server and proxy authentication, proxy membership, certificates, and Kubernetes RBAC.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
GUI limitation
The Kubernetes quickstart describes Kuma's GUI as read-only.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026
Maintainer
The documentation identifies Kong as Kuma's core maintainer.kuma.io · 2 Oct 2026

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