Phala vs. Constellation

Phala is transforming AI deployment by offering a confidential compute architecture that protects sensitive workloads with hardware-level guarantees. Built on advanced TEE technology, Phala ensures that code, data, and model outputs remain private—even from administrators, cloud providers, and hypervisors. Its catalog of confidential AI models spans leaders like OpenAI, Google, Meta, DeepSeek, and Qwen, all deployable in encrypted GPU environments within minutes. Phala’s GPU TEE system supports NVIDIA H100, H200, and B200 chips, delivering approximately 95% of native performance while maintaining 100% data privacy. Through Phala Cloud, developers can write code, package it using Docker, and launch trustless applications backed by automatic encryption and cryptographic attestation. This enables private inference, confidential training, secure fine-tuning, and compliant data processing without handling hardware complexities. Phala’s infrastructure is built for enterprise needs, offering SOC 2 Type II certification, HIPAA-ready environments, GDPR-compliant processing, and a record of zero security breaches. Real-world customer outcomes include cost-reduced financial compliance workflows, privacy-preserving medical research, fully verifiable autonomous agents, and secure AI SaaS deployments. With thousands of active teams and millions in annual recurring usage, Phala has become a critical privacy layer for companies deploying sensitive AI workloads. It provides the secure, transparent, and scalable environment required for building AI systems people can confidently trust.

Constellation is a notable Kubernetes distribution certified by the CNCF that leverages confidential computing to encrypt and isolate entire clusters, ensuring data remains secure whether at rest, in transit, or during processing by operating control and worker planes within hardware-enforced trusted execution environments. The platform maintains workload integrity through cryptographic certificates and implements stringent supply-chain security measures, including SLSA Level 3 compliance and sigstore-based signing, while successfully aligning with the benchmarks established by the Center for Internet Security for Kubernetes. In addition, it incorporates Cilium and WireGuard to enable precise eBPF traffic management alongside complete end-to-end encryption. Designed for high availability and automatic scaling, Constellation offers nearly native performance across all major cloud providers and simplifies the deployment process with an easy-to-use CLI and kubeadm interface. It commits to deploying Kubernetes security updates within a 24-hour window, includes hardware-backed attestation, and provides reproducible builds, positioning it as a trustworthy solution for enterprises. Moreover, it seamlessly integrates with existing DevOps frameworks via standard APIs, optimizing workflows and significantly boosting overall productivity, making it an essential tool for modern cloud-native environments. With these features, Constellation is well-equipped to meet the evolving needs of organizations looking to enhance their Kubernetes deployments.