Engineering-first
Best practices are often context-free. WAF++ focuses on transparent criteria, evidence, and trade-offs — so decisions remain reproducible across teams.
Strategy · Community
Vision & Mission
WAF++ is a community-driven, vendor-neutral framework built from real-world experience. Our goal: make architecture quality, governance, and sovereignty in cloud and multi-cloud environments transparently assessable and continuously improvable.
Vendor-neutral
Community-driven
Open source
Why
Why WAF++?
Three structural gaps in the existing landscape that WAF++ was built to close.
Provider-independent
WAF++ defines principles, reference models, and controls — regardless of whether you run AWS, Azure, GCP, on-premises, or hybrid combinations.
Transparency by design
Decisions are discussed, documented, and versioned publicly via RFCs, reviews, and the roadmap. This makes the framework auditable and community-ready.
Vision
Our Vision
Organizations should be able to evaluate cloud architectures in a multi-cloud reality — clearly, transparently, and independently of marketing narratives. WAF++ provides a shared lens of pillars, criteria, and reference models.
“Traceability instead of gut feeling. Criteria instead of buzzwords.”
Mission
Our Mission
Four concrete deliverables that turn the vision into engineering reality.
Assessment
A shared assessment model
Guiding questions and criteria for architecture quality — including what evidence (artifacts, policies, ADRs, metrics) makes an answer robust.
Scoring
Maturity & scoring (transparent)
A maturity and scoring model built step by step — not a black box, but transparent rules that teams can iteratively improve.
Patterns
Reference models & patterns
Reusable patterns, anti-patterns, and reference architectures — including trade-offs and operational considerations consolidated from real projects.
Governance
Community & governance
Working Groups, Maintainers, and the TSC ensure quality and consistency. Decisions are transparent, documented, and publicly discussed.
Positioning
How WAF++ positions itself
WAF++ is not a replacement for provider frameworks — it is the neutral layer between them.
WAF++ vs. provider frameworks
Provider frameworks are valuable — but often product-centric. WAF++ complements them with vendor-neutral criteria, governance, and sovereignty considerations.
WAF++ & CNCF alignment
Governance and community structure are inspired by proven open-source models such as CNCF: Working Groups, RFCs, and radical transparency.
WAF++ & audits
WAF++ is audit-friendly: criteria are documented, decisions traceable, and improvements can be versioned — making it compliance-ready by design.
Principles
Guiding principles
Four non-negotiables that shape every decision in the WAF++ framework — from content to governance.
Vendor-neutral & open
No product lock-in. Decisions are principle-based.
Traceable
Criteria, evidence, trade-offs — documented and reproducible.
Practical
Experience from operations, projects, and audits matters.
Transparent governance
Public discussions and clear roles and decisions.
Now
Where we start
At project launch, Pillar 2 (Cost Optimization) and Pillar 7 (Sovereign) are the first active pillars. Governance, community processes, and roadmap rituals are being built in parallel.
Available
Cost Optimization
Make costs visible, increase efficiency, and allocate resources deliberately. The first fully documented pillar.
Available
Sovereign
Digital sovereignty, data control, exit capability, and regulatory alignment across cloud environments.
Community
Get involved
Working Groups, reviews, use cases, sessions — we build in the open. No minimum contribution required.
Shape the future
Help shape WAF++.
Share use cases, provide feedback, or contribute in Working Groups — WAF++ thrives on real-world practice and community input.