AWS App Mesh vs Dapr: What are the differences?

Introduction

Here are the key differences between AWS App Mesh and Dapr:

1. Managed Service vs. Open Source Framework: AWS App Mesh is a managed service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Dapr is an open-source, portable, event-driven runtime framework. AWS App Mesh is fully managed by AWS and provides a complete service mesh solution, whereas Dapr is a flexible framework that can be used with various cloud providers and platforms.

2. Platform Independence: Dapr is designed to be platform-independent and can run on any infrastructure, including on-premises servers, virtual machines, and containers. It can also be used with different programming languages, enabling developers to build applications using their preferred language. On the other hand, AWS App Mesh is tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem and is primarily used with AWS services, limiting its compatibility with other platforms and providers.

3. Service Discovery: AWS App Mesh relies on AWS Cloud Map for service discovery, allowing services to dynamically register and discover other services within the mesh. In contrast, Dapr provides its own service discovery mechanism, which is based on a sidecar pattern where a sidecar container is deployed alongside each service to manage service discovery.

4. Traffic Routing: AWS App Mesh offers advanced traffic routing capabilities, including weighted routing, HTTP path-based routing, and header-based routing. It also supports traffic splitting and canary deployments, allowing for controlled rollouts of new versions of services. Dapr provides a more lightweight traffic routing mechanism, supporting basic load balancing and routing through service invocation.

5. Observability: AWS App Mesh provides robust observability features, including metrics, logs, and distributed tracing. It integrates with AWS X-Ray for tracing and AWS CloudWatch for monitoring and logging. Dapr also provides observability features, but the extent of monitoring and tracing capabilities may depend on the specific observability tools and platforms used in conjunction with Dapr.

6. Security and Authentication: AWS App Mesh offers various security features, including mutual TLS authentication, fine-grained access control, and encryption in transit for service communication. Authentication and authorization can be enforced at the service mesh level. Dapr also supports security features like authentication and encryption, but as an open-source framework, the specific security implementation depends on the underlying platform or cloud provider.

In summary, AWS App Mesh is a managed service tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem, offering advanced features for service mesh management, while Dapr is an open-source framework that provides flexibility and portability for building event-driven applications on various platforms and infrastructure.