Hands-On Microservices with Kubernetes

When should you avoid Istio?

Istio provides a lot of value. However, this value is not without a cost. The intrusive nature of Istio and its complexity have some significant downsides. You should consider these downsides before you adopt Istio:

• Additional concepts and management systems on top of the already complex Kubernetes make the learning curve very steep.
• Troubleshooting configuration issues is challenging.
• Integration with other projects might be missing or partial (for example, NATS and Telepresence).
• The proxies add latency and consume CPU and memory resources.

If you're just starting with Kubernetes, I recommend waiting until you get the hang of it before you even consider using Istio.

Now that we understand what Istio is all ...