Istio vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Isito and VMware are both solutions in the Service Mesh category. Isito is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while VMware is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4. Additionally, 100% of Isito users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Istio

Read 10 Istio reviews

3,081 Views
2,518 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 20 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

710 Views
576 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Istio

VMware Tanzu Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

Istio and VMware Tanzu Platform are leading solutions in the cloud-native application space. VMware Tanzu Platform's extensive features and comprehensive ecosystem make it a superior product, with users believing it is worth the higher cost.

Features: Istio offers robust service mesh capabilities, powerful traffic management, and is valuable for microservices architectures. VMware Tanzu Platform is praised for its extensive integration capabilities, advanced Kubernetes management features, and offers broader and more integrated features compared to Istio.

Room for Improvement: Istio users noted a need for improvements in documentation, and operational simplicity. VMware Tanzu Platform users mentioned the complexity of the initial setup and a steep learning curve. Istio users find its documentation issues less critical compared to the complexity of VMware Tanzu Platform.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Istio is commended for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. VMware Tanzu Platform users report a more challenging deployment process but receive strong customer support once the system is running. Istio offers a smoother initial deployment whereas VMware Tanzu Platform provides better post-deployment support.

Pricing and ROI: Istio is considered cost-effective with a good return on investment according to user reviews. VMware Tanzu Platform, although higher in cost, delivers substantial long-term benefits and ROI through its comprehensive feature set. Istio wins on affordability, but VMware Tanzu Platform justifies its higher price with enhanced capabilities and better ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Istio vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Istio vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

January 2025

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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

Istio

Ranking in Service Mesh

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Service Mesh

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (12th), PaaS Clouds (9th), Cloud Management (17th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Agile and DevOps Services (5th)

Featured Reviews

JETTI DINESH REDDY

Infra , DevSecOps & Automation Architect at Zuellig Pharma

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…

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Vikram Casula

Head Of Infrastructure & Cloud ops at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Gives a single pane to manage multiple Kubernetes environments and has competitive pricing

Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity. The other part is that the virtualization and the database have to be at separate levels. That is another problem for me. We are a big Oracle customer. Oracle and VMware don't go very well. From a licensing point of view, it never works.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"Istio makes all that much easier - traffic splits, percentage traffic splits, doing some sort of chaos testing to see how it works."

"We use Istio for Service Discovery and routing traffic."

"Istio's best feature is that it's easy to use."

"The load balancing, service application, and monitoring of the life of the service are valuable features. We use it for authentication of call services, load balancing the calls among the service providers on service instances, and monitoring the health of the services."

"The most valuable features of Istio are the traffic management and the Sidecar they inject, which greatly helps secure the application."

More Istio pros

"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."

"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"

"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."

"The most valuable feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is the management functionality of the cluster life cycle. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other vendors, such as Velero for backups and Sonobuoy for compliance. Additionally, it works well in multi-cluster environments."

"We never experienced any problems with scalability."

"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."

"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."

"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"It would be good if the solution had more community forums."

"For our use case that we applied it to, there were graph queues and the calls that were coming in. There were the things that we couldn't apply at the time, but it kind of worked."

"Istio needs to be more mature and user-friendly."

"If someone doesn't understand Kubernetes, they'll have issues working with Istio."

"Istio's documentation is basic and would benefit from more examples."

"Handling large-scale environments with proxies can strain resources, but horizontal scaling can improve fault tolerance."

"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."

"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."

More Istio cons

"It is not easy to build a solution with containers. It has a graphical user interface, but you need to have a lot of knowledge of Linux and how to work in the command mode. Its support can also be improved. Currently, its biggest disadvantage is that it is a new product, and the clients prefer to go for a solution that has been in the market for a long time. There are not that many people who know this product."

"The disaster recovery feature could be improved to provide better tracking of issues. I would also like to see the introduction of a dashboard view, for even further integration of all the areas that Mission Control looks at."

"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"Tanzu could provide more granular control over whatever networking is being done on the containers. I would also like to see a slightly more detailed view of application-level tracing. I'm referring to the connections between different microservices. If they added a service-matching feature, that would be helpful for the customers to build or be more effective."

"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."

"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."

"The network control and security policies must be improved."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"You can deploy Istio free of cost and don't need to pay for it."

"We use the tool's open-source version, so there are no hidden fees or additional costs associated with it."

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."

"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."

"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."

"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"

"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."

"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 ...

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What do you like most about Istio?

We use Istio for Service Discovery and routing traffic.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Istio?

At the moment, there are no immediate improvements needed. Reducing the latency between the control plane and the data plane would be beneficial.

See all answers

Which is better - OpenShift Container Platform or VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

Red Hat Openshift is ideal for organizations using microservices and cloud environments. I like that the platform is auto-scalable, which saves overhead time for developers. I think Openshift can b...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Application Service?

The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Application Service?

The licensing cost is yearly. The licensing cost is expensive.

See all answers

Comparisons

Kong Mesh vs Istio

Compared 43% of the time

HAProxy vs Istio

Compared 32% of the time

NGINX Service-Mesh vs Istio

Compared 6% of the time

AWS App Mesh vs Istio

Compared 5% of the time

Traefik Enterprise vs Istio

Compared 3% of the time

More Istio Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Google Kubernetes Engine vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Istio

January 2025

Download Istio product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

December 2024

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu

Learn More

Video not available

Isito

VMware

Overview

Connect
Intelligently control the flow of traffic and API calls between services, conduct a range of tests, and upgrade gradually with red/black deployments.

Secure
Automatically secure your services through managed authentication, authorization, and encryption of communication between services.

Control
Apply policies and ensure that they’re enforced, and that resources are fairly distributed among consumers.

Observe
See what's happening with rich automatic tracing, monitoring, and logging of all your services.

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Istio vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

January 2025

Free Report: Istio vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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