# hashicorp/consul

Consul is a distributed, highly available, and data center aware solution to connect and configure applications across dynamic, distributed infrastructure.

Repository: https://github.com/hashicorp/consul
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/consul
Homepage: https://www.consul.io
Language: Go
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: consul, service-mesh, service-discovery, kubernetes, vault, ecs, api-gateway
Last push: 2026-08-26T20:14:41+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 84, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4685, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 26, "gap_med": 0.0, "n_releases_24m": 75}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 30043, forks 4617 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:53.808359+00:00)

## What it is
HashiCorp Consul is a distributed, highly available service networking solution providing service discovery, health checking, service mesh with mTLS encryption, and an API gateway across dynamic, multi-cloud infrastructure. It offers a DNS and HTTP API interface, a control plane built on Raft and gossip protocols, and Envoy-based sidecar proxies for secure service-to-service communication.

## Use cases
- discover services in a microservices cluster without hardcoding IPs
- secure service-to-service communication with automatic TLS in a service mesh
- expose mesh services to external clients through an API gateway
- run health checks and route traffic away from unhealthy instances
- manage dynamic application configuration across datacenters
- connect services across Kubernetes, VMs, ECS, and multi-cloud environments

## When to choose
- you operate microservices across multiple datacenters or hybrid/multi-cloud environments
- you need service discovery plus a service mesh with identity-based authorization in one platform
- you want DNS-based service lookup with health-check-aware routing
- you run Kubernetes, Nomad, ECS, or VMs and need a consistent networking control plane

## When to avoid
- you only need simple load balancing without service discovery or mesh features
- you want a fully open-source license - Consul uses BUSL-1.1, not an OSI license
- your stack is small enough that a single load balancer or Kubernetes-native services suffice
- you need a lightweight solution without running Consul server agents and sidecar proxies

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: service-discovery, api-gateway, security, configuration-management, monitoring, networking, http-server
- domain: microservices, networking, cloud-computing, security
- platform: windows, cloud, self-hosted, go
- tags: service-mesh, hashicorp, envoy, sidecar-proxy, health-checking, multi-datacenter, raft, gossip-protocol, busl-license, api-gateway, devops, containers, linux, macos, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- hashicorp/consul (main) score 94

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:53.808359+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:52:48.444726+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/hashicorp/consul (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:53.808359+00:00, sha d7157a7287f6)
  - homepage: https://www.consul.io (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.432076+00:00, sha 80b1da04578e)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/hcp/docs/vault-radar (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.441511+00:00, sha 558d122b761a)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/install (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.443498+00:00, sha c0c668cd21bb)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.445305+00:00, sha 431ed41f36b0)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/api-docs (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.447152+00:00, sha 1db90742de70)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/intro (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.449038+00:00, sha 7a10a53b7fad)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/architecture/control-plane (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.450866+00:00, sha 021e10c0982b)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/architecture/data-plane (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.452754+00:00, sha 945602f34fea)
  - site_page: https://developer.hashicorp.com/consul/docs/concept/catalog (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:55.454422+00:00, sha 16c2fd4342fa)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.