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Envoy vs Istio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Envoy
Ranking in Service Mesh
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Istio
Ranking in Service Mesh
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of Envoy is 19.1%, up from 18.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Istio is 22.4%, up from 22.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

AM
A simple solution that works as a proxy server and load balancer
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik. The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.  I haven't contacted the tool's support team.  I chose Envoy for the POC…
JETTI DINESH REDDY - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced microservice security and advanced traffic management and good authentification
When our developers are building the microservices, instead of imposing additional burdens or additional thinking on them, especially as part of network features such as traffic management, security, or observability, we deploy something from the infrastructure side, so developers need only focus…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik."
"We use Istio for Service Discovery and routing traffic."
"The tool's mutual TLS stands out. It provides secure communication between services within the cluster. Additionally, Istio offers built-in telemetry and tracing with tools like Jaeger, which aids monitoring and troubleshooting."
"Istio provides tremendous value, particularly in offering TLS and authentication over microservice-to-microservice communication."
"Istio's best feature is that it's easy to use."
"Istio makes all that much easier - traffic splits, percentage traffic splits, doing some sort of chaos testing to see how it works."
"What I find particularly valuable about Istio is that it is free of cost."
"We can implement load balancing to distribute traffic across multiple service instances. Istio also offers traffic routing capabilities and circuit-breaking functionality. For security, it handles authentication using mutual TLS (mTLS) between services. It can authorize services using JWT tokens. Istio also allows defining policies for rate limiting to control traffic within services."
"The security feature with mutual TLS authentication, which is identity-based, and the traffic management using cloud load balancers are very valuable."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples."
"It would be good if the solution had more community forums."
"Based on my experience, the solution could be improved. They could simplify the learning process so that users can understand how its features work together, especially with components like Kibana. Learning about the different components is necessary. For instance, you need to understand the traffic flow, potential bottlenecks, and the architecture within Istio."
"Istio has issues with performance."
"If you're a beginner in infrastructure management and networking, learning Istio might pose some challenges. However, if you have some knowledge of networking or service meshes, you should find it manageable. Istio's website offers documentation to guide you through learning."
"Handling large-scale environments with proxies can strain resources, but horizontal scaling can improve fault tolerance."
"I've seen applications where they had such strict time constraints, they couldn't use Istio because it was too much overhead."
"Reducing the latency between the control plane and the data plane would be beneficial."
"Istio's documentation is basic and would benefit from more examples."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"We use the tool's open-source version, so there are no hidden fees or additional costs associated with it."
"You can deploy Istio free of cost and don't need to pay for it."
"It is on the less expensive side. It provides a significant saving for us in terms of cost and other things. It is open-source. We just download it from the open-source framework and use it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Envoy?
The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.
What is your primary use case for Envoy?
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Istio?
Istio provides a significant saving for us in terms of costs since it is open source. However, Istio can still come at a price. It has a steep learning curve and might require more manpower hours ...
What do you like most about Istio?
We use Istio for Service Discovery and routing traffic.
What needs improvement with Istio?
I do not see much room for improvement in Istio for my project as it currently fits my needs perfectly. It would be beneficial if Istio offered paid support options, similar to AWS's enterprise sup...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Booking.com, Cookpad, Digital Ocean, Ebay, F5, Google, GO-JEK, Grubhub, IBM, Medium, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Salesforce.com, Snapchat, Stripe, Square, Tencent, Twilio, Uber, Verizon, VMware, Vsco, Yahoo Japan, Yelp
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Isito, Envoy, HAProxy and others in Service Mesh. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.