--- title: "Calico product editions" description: "Side-by-side comparison of Calico Enterprise against Calico Open Source and Calico Cloud across management, networking, security, and observability features." product: "Calico Enterprise" version: "3.23 (latest)" section: "About Calico" canonical_url: "https://docs.tigera.io/calico-enterprise/latest/about/calico-product-editions" --- # Calico product editions ##### Calico Open Source Open-source networking and security for containers and Kubernetes ##### Calico Cloud Free Tier Observability & policy management for a single cluster ##### Calico Cloud SaaS platform for Kubernetes networking and security ##### Calico Enterprise Self-managed platform for Kubernetes networking and security ## Which product edition is right for me? | My needs | Calico product edition | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | I want open source, best-in-class networking, network security, and observability capabilities that can work across any Kubernetes distribution, for free. | Calico Open Source [Get Started](https://docs.tigera.io/calico/latest/getting-started.md) | | I’m a Calico Open Source user who wants to leverage some of the improved observability and policy management capabilities that are available in Calico Cloud, for free. | Calico Cloud Free Tier [Sign up](https://auth.calicocloud.io/u/signup/identifier?state=hKFo2SBoMWV0M1RBUDlvWU83V2pGOS1ybVpCdmJGcDJRXzRSdaFur3VuaXZlcnNhbC1sb2dpbqN0aWTZIEJMclZBR2NmZzFacHRMclRIOFBzVEdNdVozOFlOSkpio2NpZNkgcTZ4MVM2dHdxZ0pHOVZLSEQzRGR0S0tEQTB2MlNuYkU) | | My organization wants a **fully managed SaaS** platform for network security and observability. | Calico Cloud [Get Started](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/get-started.md) | | My organization wants a **self-managed platform** for network security and observability. | Calico Enterprise [Get Started](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-enterprise/latest/getting-started.md) | ## Feature comparison matrix | | Calico Open Source | Calico Cloud Free Tier\* | Calico Cloud | Calico Enterprise | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | ------------------------ | ----------------- | ----------------- | | **Management and Support** | | | | | | Mutli-cluster security controls management | | | | | | Data retention | In-memory | 24 hours | 7 days | Unlimited | | Number of clusters | Unlimited | One | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Number of users | N/A | One | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Support and maintenance | Community-driven | Community-driven | Standard/Business | Standard/Business | | **Networking** | | | | | | High performance, scalable pod networking | | | | | | Advanced IP address management | | | | | | Direct infrastructure peering without the overlay | | | | | | eBPF data plane | | | | | | Windows data plane | | | | | | nftables data plane | | | | | | iptables data plane | | | | | | VPP data plane | | | | | | Multiple Calico networks on a pod | | | | | | Dual ToR peering | | | | | | Ingress gateway | | | | | | Egress gateway | | | | | | Cluster mesh | | | | | | **Network Security** | | | | | | Seamless support for Kubernetes network policy | | | | | | Label-based policies for K8s and non-K8s workloads | | | | | | Namespace and cluster-wide scope | | | | | | Global default deny policy design | | | | | | Application layer policy | | | | | | Policy for services | | | | | | Policy board | | View only | | | | DNS/FQDN-based policy | | | | | | Hierarchical tiered network policy | | | | | | Policy recommendations | | Manual workflow | | | | Staged network policy | | | | | | Preview staged policies | | | | | | Network sets to limit IP ranges for egress and ingress traffic to workloads | | | | | | Data-in-transit encryption | | | | | | Universal firewall integration | | | | | | Workload-based IDS/IPS | | | | | | Deep packet inspection | | | | | | DDoS protection | | | | | | Workload-centric WAF | | | | | | Compliance reporting and alerts | | | | | | SIEM integrations | | | | | | **Network Security for VMs and Bare Metal** | | | | | | Restrict traffic to/from hosts and VMs using network policy | | | | | | Automatic host endpoints | | | | | | Apply policy to host-forwarded traffic | | | | | | **Observability** | | | | | | Flow logs API | | | | | | Calico Whisker web console | | | | | | Dynamic service and threat graph | | | | | | Application level observability | | | | | | Dynamic packet capture | | | | | | Flow visualizer | | | | | | Logs (flow) | | | | | | Logs (http traffic, audit, bgp, dns, events) | | | | | | Dashboards | | \*\* | | | | Alerts | | | | | \* Calico Cloud Free Tier requires a cluster with Calico Open Source 3.30 or higher. \*\* Calico Cloud Free Tier includes some of the dashboards that are available in Calico Cloud and Calico Enterprise. ## How to get started with Calico Calico powers 100M+ containers across 8M+ nodes in 166 countries, and is supported across all major cloud providers and Kubernetes distributions. ### Ready to get started? Start a free trial or request a demo to see Calico in action. - [Sign up for a Calico Cloud Free Tier account](https://www.calicocloud.io/?code=free) - [Schedule a 30-minute demo with our experts](https://www.tigera.io/demo/) ### Installation guides - [Install Calico Open Source](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-enterprise/latest/getting-started.md) - [Install Calico Cloud Free Tier](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/free/connect-cluster-free.md) - [Install Calico Cloud](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-cloud/get-started/install-cluster.md) - [Install Calico Enterprise](https://docs.tigera.io/calico-enterprise/latest/getting-started.md) ## How to engage ### Learning resources - [Blog](https://www.tigera.io/blog/) - [Certifications](https://www.tigera.io/lp/calico-certification/) (self-paced) - [Product tutorials](https://www.tigera.io/tutorials/) (self-paced) - [Learn guides](https://www.tigera.io/learn/guides/kubernetes-networking/) - [Webinars and workshops](https://www.tigera.io/events/) (live and on demand) - [Resources](https://www.tigera.io/resources/) ### Get involved - [Calico Open Source Community](https://www.tigera.io/project-calico/community/) - GitHub - [Project Calico](https://github.com/projectcalico/calico) - [Tigera](https://github.com/tigera) ### Get in touch - [Slack](https://calicousers.slack.com/) (Calico Open Source users) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFpTnXDNcBoXI4gqCDmegFA) (@ProjectCalico) - LinkedIn - [Tigera](https://www.linkedin.com/company/tigera/) - [Project Calico](https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-calico/) - X - [Tigera](https://x.com/tigeraio) - [Project Calico](https://x.com/projectcalico) - [Contact us](https://www.tigera.io/contact/)