CNCF Ecosystem Overview
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical open-source projects that power modern cloud-native infrastructure. This comparison helps you choose between self-managed CNCF tools and managed cloud services from Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
Maturity Levels: Graduated - Production-ready, widely adopted | Incubating - Stable, growing adoption | Sandbox - Early-stage innovation
Tool Comparison Matrix
| Category | CNCF / Open Source | Azure | AWS | Google Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Container Orchestration | Kubernetes Graduated | Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) | Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) |
| Container Runtime | containerd Graduated | Integrated with AKS | Integrated with EKS | Integrated with GKE |
| Service Mesh | Istio, Linkerd Graduated | Azure Service Mesh (Istio-based) | AWS App Mesh | Anthos Service Mesh |
| Ingress Controller | NGINX Ingress, Envoy / Emissary Graduated | Azure Application Gateway | AWS Load Balancer Controller | GKE Ingress |
| Container Registry | Harbor Graduated | Azure Container Registry (ACR) | Elastic Container Registry (ECR) | Artifact Registry |
| Monitoring | Prometheus Graduated | Azure Monitor | Amazon CloudWatch | Cloud Monitoring |
| Logging | Fluentd, Loki Graduated | Azure Log Analytics | CloudWatch Logs | Cloud Logging |
| Tracing | Jaeger Graduated | Azure Application Insights | AWS X-Ray | Cloud Trace |
| CI/CD | Argo CD, Flux Graduated | Azure Pipelines | AWS CodePipeline | Cloud Build |
| GitOps | Argo Project, Flux Graduated | Azure Arc + Flux | Amazon EKS + Flux | Anthos Config Management |
| Secrets Management | HashiCorp Vault, External Secrets | Azure Key Vault | AWS Secrets Manager | Secret Manager |
| Policy Enforcement | Open Policy Agent (OPA) Graduated | Azure Policy | AWS Config | Policy Controller |
| Certificate Management | cert-manager Graduated | Azure Key Vault Certificates | AWS Certificate Manager | Certificate Authority Service |
| Network Policy | Calico, Cilium Incubating | Azure Network Policy (Calico) | VPC CNI Network Policy | GKE Network Policy |
| Service Discovery | Envoy, CoreDNS Graduated | Azure DNS | Route 53 | Cloud DNS |
| Artifact Signing | Sigstore (Cosign) Incubating | Azure Container Registry + Notation | AWS Signer | Binary Authorization |
| Runtime Security | Falco Graduated | Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Amazon GuardDuty | Security Command Center |
| Cost Management | OpenCost Sandbox | Azure Cost Management | AWS Cost Explorer | Cloud Billing |
| Storage Orchestration | Rook, Longhorn Graduated | Azure Disks / Azure Files | EBS / EFS | Persistent Disk / Filestore |
| Serverless / Functions | Knative Incubating | Azure Functions, Container Apps | AWS Lambda | Cloud Functions, Cloud Run |