(I am the other Mandos developer)

I think FOSDEM had a talk a few years ago about that solution and their tang server. It is very similar in concept. They use McCallum-Relyea exchange, and we use PGP encryption, but the basics are the same in that you need information stored at the server and information stored in the unencrypted initramfs in order to be combined and turned into the encryption key. If my understanding of the McCallum-Relyea exchange is correct, they also combine the key creation and perfect forward security of the transaction into a single protocol, while we use TLS and client keys for the perfect forward security aspect and PGP for data at rest.

With tang you need to verify the hash of the tang server in order to prevent a MITM threat from extracting the server side part during the key creation process, while with Mandos you configure it manually with configuration files.

Tang uses REST and JSON. Mandos sends a single protocol number and then sends the data. Both operate primarily through local LAN, through Mandos client also support as an option to use global reachable ip addresses.

Outside of those design differences, there are some packaging aspects. Tang was designed for Redhat/Dracut, while Mandos was designed for Debian and initramfs-tools (Today Mandos also support Dracut, but it is not packaged for Redhat). Redhat packaging has been requested multiple times for Mandos, but neither of us two developer are Redhat users.

To add some historical context, I recall a Debconf BoF by the developers of initramfs-tools about if they were going to continue developing initramfs-tools or giving up and port everything to Dracut, and the silence was fairly deafening. People did not want to give up on initramfs-tools, but everyone recognized the massive duplication that those two project are. Similarly, the reason why Redhat had chosen initially to develop Dracut rather than just port initramfs-tools is also fairly big mystery, and is generally considered a Not Invented Here syndrome. Today there are however some distinct difference in design between the two systems.