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Hubble — observe Kubernetes flows, policy decisions, and service dependencies through Cilium/eBPF

OSS scale score 216.0OSS health 85Update pace 8 commits/30d
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Stars
4,340
Primary language
Makefile
License
Apache-2.0
Repository last updated
Sep 15, 2026

Overview

Hubble is a networking, service, and security observability platform built on Cilium and eBPF. It exposes workload communication as flows covering TCP connections, DNS queries, HTTP requests, network-policy decisions, latency, and service relationships.

Features and best fit

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Observe L3/L4/L7 flows without modifying applications

Hubble derives communication data from the Cilium eBPF dataplane so TCP, DNS, HTTP, workload, and namespace behavior can be inspected transparently.

Sources: [2][4]

Investigate dependencies, policy drops, and latency

Service maps, policy decisions, HTTP status and latency, and DNS failures help diagnose communication paths across microservices.

Sources: [2]

For deeper network troubleshooting in Cilium-based Kubernetes clusters

Hubble fits clusters that need to trace policy drops, DNS issues, connection failures, or service-to-service latency beyond what application logs expose.

Sources: [2][4]

Account for the Cilium dependency and component maturity

Hubble requires Cilium/eBPF. The README marks CLI, Server, Metrics, and Relay as stable while Hubble UI is beta, so evaluate component maturity for critical workloads.

Sources: [2]

Official sources

  1. [1]cilium/hubble repository(2026-09-20)
  2. [2]Hubble README(2026-09-20)
  3. [3]Hubble Apache-2.0 license(2026-09-20)
  4. [4]Cilium Hubble documentation(2026-09-20)
Supplemental curator note

Hubble is useful when teams need to understand which workloads communicate and whether failures occur at DNS, TCP, HTTP, or network-policy layers. It is an observability layer built on Cilium rather than a standalone CNI. The README marks CLI, Server, Metrics, and Relay stable while Hubble UI remains beta.

Try it in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Enable Hubble on a Cilium cluster

    Enable Hubble Relay on a test Kubernetes cluster where Cilium is already installed.

    cilium hubble enable
  2. 2

    Install the Hubble CLI

    Use the official installation path for your operating system.

    https://docs.cilium.io/en/stable/observability/hubble/setup.html#install-the-hubble-client
  3. 3

    Observe recent flows

    Automatically forward the Relay port and inspect recent workload communication and policy decisions.

    hubble observe --port-forward --since 1m
Check the official README

Growth

Growth trends · Last 30 days

4,340 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Development activity

Last 90 days · weekly

Commits (last 30 days)
8
Open PRs
1
Issues opened
0
Issues closed
2
PRs opened
25
PRs merged
22

Issues

0 / 2

Jun 23Sep 20
Issues openedIssues closed

Pull requests

25 / 22

Jun 23Sep 20
PRs openedPRs merged

Maintenance

Median first response
Not specified
Issue response rate
No eligible issues

Based on up to the 100 newest issues opened by external users in the last 90 days. A first comment from an OWNER, MEMBER, or COLLABORATOR counts as a response; issues whose full comment history cannot be checked are excluded. The median and response rate update weekly.

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Categories

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GitHub data

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GitHub Topics

  • ebpf
  • observability
  • kubernetes
  • metrics
  • networking
  • security
  • tracing
  • cilium
Stars
4,340
Forks
301
Watchers
46
Open issues
43
Contributors
49
Primary language
Makefile
License
Apache-2.0
Repository last updated
Sep 15, 2026
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