---
layout: docs
page_title: Why Choose Consul?
description: >-
  Consul is a service networking platform that centralizes service discovery, enables zero trust networking with service mesh, automates network infrastructure, and controls access to mesh services with the Consul API Gateway. Compare Consul with other software that provide similar capabilities with one or more of the core use cases.
---

# Why Choose Consul?

HashiCorp Consul is a service networking platform that encompasses multiple capabilities to secure and simplify network service management. These capabilities include service mesh, service discovery, configuration management, and API gateway functionality. While competing products offer a few of these core capabilities, Consul is developed to address all four. The topics in this section provide a general overview of how Consul’s capabilities compare to some other tools on the market. Visit the following pages to read more about how:

- [Consul compares with other service meshes](/consul/docs/consul-vs-other/service-mesh-compare)
- [Consul compares with other DNS tools](/consul/docs/consul-vs-other/dns-tools-compare)
- [Consul compares with other configuration management tools](/consul/docs/consul-vs-other/config-management-compare)
- [Consul compares with other API Gateways](/consul/docs/consul-vs-other/api-gateway-compare)
