Welcome to my Service Mesh Comparison Guide!
With numerous service mesh options available today, it’s important to understand the distinctions between them. Some are highly proprietary, while others are open-source. Here’s a look at several key service mesh offerings you should consider:
| Service Mesh | Open Source or Proprietary | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Istio | Open Source | Widely adopted and abstracted |
| Linkerd | Open Source | Built by Buoyant |
| Consul | Open Source | Owned by Hashcorp, Cloud offering available |
| Kuma | Open Source | Maintained by Kong |
| Traefik Mesh | Open Source | Specialized Proxy |
| Open Service Mesh | Open Source | By Microsoft |
| Gloo Mesh | Proprietary | Built by Solo.io ontop of Istio |
| AWS App Mesh | Proprietary | AWS specific services |
| OpenShift Service Mesh | Proprietary | Built by Redhad, based on Istio |
| Tanzu Service Mesh | Proprietary | SaaS based on Istio, built by VMware |
| Anthos Service Mesh | Proprietary | SaaS based on Istio, built by Google |
| Bouyant Cloud | Proprietary | SaaS based on Linkerd |
| Cilium Service Mesh | Open Source | Orginally a CNI |
Istio
Istio, developed by Google, IBM, and Lyft, is a robust open-source service mesh utilizing the Envoy proxy for the sidecar pattern. It’s known for its extensive customization, advanced traffic routing, observability, and security for microservices. In 2022, Istio introduced Ambient Mesh, a sidecar-less operation mode.
AppMesh
App Mesh is AWS’s proprietary service mesh, designed for seamless integration with AWS services such as ECS, EKS, and EC2. It provides easy onboarding for AWS-based applications.
Consul
Consul by HashiCorp offers features like traffic routing, observability, and security similar to Istio. It’s known for its integration with HashiCorp’s ecosystem.
Linkerd
Linkerd, an open-source service mesh by Buoyant, is lightweight and provides traffic management, observability, and security using a Rust-based proxy. It follows a sidecar pattern similar to Istio.
Cilium
Cilium, originally a Container Networking Interface, uses eBPF for efficient packet processing within the Linux kernel. It offers some service mesh capabilities without the sidecar model, deploying per-node Envoy instances for Layer 7 processing.
Comparsion Table
| Feature | Istio | Linkerd | AppMesh | Consul | Cilium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current Version | 1.16.1 | 2.12 | N/A (it’s AWS :D ) | 1.14.3 | 1.12 |
| Project Creators | Google, Lyft, IBM, Solo | Buoyant | AWS | Hashicorp | Isovalent |
| Service Proxy | Envoy, Rust-Proxy (experimental) | Linkerd2-proxy | Envoy | Interchangeable, Envoy default | Per-node Envoy |
| Ingress Capabilities | Yes via the Istio Ingress-Gateway | No; BYO | Yes via AWS | Envoy | Cilium-Based Ingress |
| Traffic Management (Load Balancing, Traffic Split) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, but manual Envoy config required for traffic splits |
| Resiliency Capabilities (Circuit Breaking, Retries/Timeouts, Faults, Delays) | Yes | Yes, no Circuit Breaking or Delays | Yes, No Fault or Delays | Yes, No Fault or Delays | Circuit Breaking, Retries and Timeouts require manual Envoy configuration, no other resiliency capabilities |
| Monitoring | Access Logs, Kiali, Jaegar/Zikin, Grafana, Prometheus, LETS, OTEL | LETS, Prometheus, Grafana, OTEL | AWS X-RAY, and Cloud Watch provides these | Datadog, Jaegar, Zipkin, OpenTracing, OTEL, Honeycomb | Hubble, OTEL, Prometheus, Grafana |
| Security Capabilities (mTLS, External CA) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, with Wireguard |
| Getting Started | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Production Ready | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Key Features | Sidecar and Sidecar-less, Wasm Extensibility, VM support, Multi-cloud Support, Data Plane extensions | Simplistic and non-invasive | Highly focused and tight integration into AWS Ecosystem | Tight integration into Nomad and Hashicorp Ecosystem | Usage of eBPF for enhanced packet processing, Cilium Control Plane used to manage Service Mesh, No sidecars |
| Limitations | Complex, learning curve | Strictly K8s, additional config for BYO Ingress | Limited to just AWS services | Storage tied to Consul and not K8s | Not a complete Service Mesh, requires manual configuration |
| Protocol Support (TCP, HTTP 1.1 & 2, gRPC) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sidecar Modes | Sidecar and Sidecar-less | Sidecar | Sidecar | Sidecar | No sidecar |
| CNI Redirection | Istio CNI Plugin | linkerd-cni | ProxyConfiguration Required | Consul CNI | eBPF Kernel processing |
| Platform Support | K8s and VMs | K8s | EC2, EKS, ECS, Fargate, K8s on EC2 | K8s, Nomad, ECS, Lambda, VMs | K8s, VMs, Nomad |
| Multi-cluster Mesh | Yes | Yes | Yes, only AWS | Yes | Yes |
| Governance and Oversight | Istio Community | Linkered Community | AWS | Hashicorp | Cilium Community |
Conclusion
Service meshes have significantly evolved, offering various capabilities and supporting diverse environments. Istio stands out as the most feature-rich service mesh, offering a balance of platform support, customizability, and extensibility. Linkerd is a close second with its lightweight, efficient design. AWS App Mesh excels within the AWS ecosystem, while Consul is a strong contender with robust features. Cilium, leveraging eBPF, is emerging with a unique approach but still has some gaps to fill.
Want to get deeper into Service Mesh with Istio? Head over to Istio Hands On Guide.