Side by side

Antrea vs Calico Open Source

Both stand on microsegmentation software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Antrea

Free plan Open source APILinuxSelf-hosted+1

Antrea combines Kubernetes networking with additional policy, federation and diagnostic capabilities. Its node requirements and lack of Windows traffic encryption are important constraints to check against a cluster’s needs.

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Calico Open Source

Free plan LinuxSelf-hostedWindows

Calico Open Source combines Kubernetes networking with policy controls, encryption, and flow-log visibility. Its free plan includes unlimited clusters, with community-driven support and in-memory data retention.

Visit Calico Open Source

The facts

	Antrea	Calico Open Source
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Yes	Not published
Runs on	API, Linux, Self-hosted, Windows	Linux, Self-hosted, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Free or on request	Free or on request
Plans published	1	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	antrea.io	tigera.io
On microsegmentation software	#1 of 31	#2 of 31

Antrea: what it does well

Free and open source under Apache License 2.0.
Supports VXLAN and Geneve overlays or no overlay.
Adds cluster-level, Node and tiered network policies.
Offers multi-cluster federation and Services.
Exports metrics to Prometheus.

What to know first

Requires Open vSwitch on every Kubernetes node.
Traffic encryption is unavailable on Windows nodes.
Azure support is best-effort and no longer tested from version 2.5.

Calico Open Source: what it does well

Free plan includes unlimited clusters.
Supports multiple Kubernetes network policy features.
Staged Policies allow evaluation before enforcement.
WireGuard tunnels encrypt pod traffic between nodes.
Whisker displays flow logs and network communication.

What to know first

Support and maintenance are community-driven.
Data retention is in-memory.

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