No. 13 of 26 ·Container Networking Software

Submariner

Self-hosted

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Freedom report

One barScore 5.4

Free tierNo free tier on record
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely0 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Submariner is ranked #13 of 26 in container networking software on Freedom251. It runs on Self-hosted.

Compared on container networking software

Free plan: Yes
CNI plugin: No
Network policies: No
Egress control: Yes
Multi-cluster networking: Yes
Encryption in transit: Yes
Supported platforms: Kubernetes; OpenShift-SDN; Weave; Flannel; Canal; Calico; OVN; AWS; GKE; Azure; GCP; vSphere; OpenStack; x86-64; ARM64

Best Submariner alternatives

See all 20

One bar Canal Free tier No. 1Free6.5 One bar VMware Workstation Pro Free tier No. 2Free6.5 One bar Antrea Free tier No. 3Free6.4 One bar Calico Open Source Free tier No. 4Free6.4 One bar CNI Plugins Free tier No. 5Free6.4 One bar Flannel Free tier No. 6Free6.4

The record

Purpose: Submariner connects Pods and Services across Kubernetes clusters running on-premises or in the cloud.
Connectivity: It provides cross-cluster Layer 3 connectivity using encrypted or unencrypted connections.
Service discovery: Lighthouse provides DNS discovery for services across connected clusters and implements the Kubernetes Multi-Cluster Service APIs.
Deployment tool: The project includes subctl, a command-line utility that simplifies deployment and management.
Network plugins: Submariner is designed to be CNI-agnostic and documents working alongside network plugins including Calico and Flannel.
Overlapping CIDRs: Globalnet is an optional component for connecting clusters with overlapping CIDRs; by default, clusters need distinct, non-overlapping ServiceCIDR and ClusterCIDR ranges.
Security: The project describes IPsec tunnels as its default for encrypting traffic between clusters.
Calico limitation: Submariner is validated with Calico when it uses VXLAN encapsulation, and Calico requires configuration to avoid NAT on remote cluster subnets.
External connectivity: Access to external applications or endpoints outside Kubernetes is described as experimental and potentially less mature or stable than core features.
Administrative requirements: Deployment requires administrative setup, including configuring firewall rules in the underlying infrastructure.
License: Contributions to the project other than the website must be made available under the Apache License, version 2.0.
Community support: The project offers community help through GitHub, Kubernetes Slack, open community meetings, and user and developer mailing lists.
Project status: Submariner is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation sandbox project.
Use case: It supports applications spanning cloud providers, data centers, and regions for needs such as geo-redundancy, scale, and fault isolation.

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Container Networking Software in 2026#13 of 26

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Sources

submariner.io· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/getting-started/architecture/service-di· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/community/role-ecosystem/· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/getting-started/architecture/globalnet/· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/operations/deployment/calico/· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/development/licenses/· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/community/getting-help/· checked 2 Oct 2026
submariner.io/getting-started/architecture/gateway-en· checked 3 Oct 2026
submariner.io/operations/deployment/· checked 3 Oct 2026