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Terway

Terway is a CNI plugin for Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes (ACK) built on Alibaba Cloud ENI technology.

Place
#19 of 28
Score
5.7
Terway's website

What Terway is

Terway is a CNI plugin for Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes (ACK) built on Alibaba Cloud ENI technology. Each Pod gets its own network stack and IP address. Pods on the same ECS instance communicate directly, while traffic between ECS instances uses VPC ENIs without VxLAN encapsulation. ENI mode assigns network interfaces to Pods to optimize resource use and network performance; trunking can give Pods independent ENIs for flexible security-group and switch configurations. Node pools can be set up for exclusive ENI use. Terway supports Kubernetes NetworkPolicy, traditional security groups, and dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6. It uses eBPF for protocol-stack acceleration, described as supporting low latency and high throughput. The open-source project is free. Its listed platforms include ACK, Alibaba Cloud VPC/ENI, Alibaba Cloud Linux 3/4, ContainerOS, and Ubuntu. One deployment difference matters: trunking is unavailable in self-hosted clusters, while ACK-provided versions otherwise match the open-source version. VPC Network Mode and Exclusive ENI Mode are marked deprecated.

Good

  • Each Pod has its own network stack and IP.
  • Supports Kubernetes NetworkPolicy and security groups.
  • Supports dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6.
  • Uses eBPF for protocol-stack acceleration.
  • Free open-source project.

Watch out

  • Trunking is unavailable in self-hosted clusters.
  • VPC Network Mode is deprecated.
  • Exclusive ENI Mode is deprecated.

Who it suits

Terway suits teams running Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud that need Pod networking, network policies, or ENI-based configurations. Its self-hosted limitation is important for users who require trunking.

Verdict

Terway covers Pod networking, policy controls, and ENI configurations for Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes. Self-hosted users should note the missing trunking support and deprecated modes.

Plans and prices

From Terway's own pricing page, checked 3 Oct 2026.

All about pricing
PlanPriceWhat it gives you
Open sourceFreeTrunking is unavailable in self-hosted clusters

The facts

Each one read from Terway's own pages, with the date it was checked.

What it does

Community support
The README invites bug fixes, feature work, documentation improvements, and code contributions, and lists a DingTalk group ID of 35924643.checked 3 Oct 2026
Deprecated modes
The README marks VPC Network Mode and Exclusive ENI Mode as deprecated.checked 3 Oct 2026
ENI mode
ENI network mode allocates ENIs to Pods to optimize resource use and network performance.checked 3 Oct 2026
IP support
Terway supports dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6.checked 3 Oct 2026
Network security
Terway supports Kubernetes NetworkPolicy and traditional security groups for multi-dimensional network access control.checked 3 Oct 2026
Node pools
Terway supports configuring node pools for exclusive ENI usage.checked 3 Oct 2026
Performance
Terway uses eBPF for protocol stack acceleration and describes the result as low latency and high throughput.checked 3 Oct 2026
Pod networking
Each Pod has its own network stack and IP address; Pods on the same ECS instance communicate directly, while cross-ECS Pod traffic travels through VPC ENIs without VxLAN encapsulation.checked 3 Oct 2026
Product
Terway is a CNI plugin for Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes (ACK), built on Alibaba Cloud ENI technology.checked 3 Oct 2026
Security reporting
The project asks users to report code vulnerabilities to [email protected] and refers to SECURITY.md for details.checked 3 Oct 2026
Self-hosted limitation
The README says ACK-provided versions match the open-source version except that Trunking is unavailable in self-hosted clusters.checked 3 Oct 2026
Trunking
Trunking allows Pods to have independent ENIs for flexible security group and switch configurations.checked 3 Oct 2026

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