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Istio vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?
Developers describe Istio as "Open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices, by Google, IBM, and Lyft". Istio is an open platform for providing a uniform way to integrate microservices, manage traffic flow across microservices, enforce policies and aggregate telemetry data. Istio's control plane provides an abstraction layer over the underlying cluster management platform, such as Kubernetes, Mesos, etc. On the other hand, Kubernetes is detailed as "Manage a cluster of Linux containers as a single system to accelerate Dev and simplify Ops". Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.
Istio can be classified as a tool in the "Microservices Tools" category, while Kubernetes is grouped under "Container Tools".
"Zero code for logging and monitoring" is the top reason why over 4 developers like Istio, while over 134 developers mention "Leading docker container management solution" as the leading cause for choosing Kubernetes.
Istio and Kubernetes are both open source tools. Kubernetes with 55.1K GitHub stars and 19.1K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Istio with 18.5K GitHub stars and 3.1K GitHub forks.
Google, Slack, and Shopify are some of the popular companies that use Kubernetes, whereas Istio is used by Cuemby, Entelo, and AgFlow. Kubernetes has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1048 company stacks & 1099 developers stacks; compared to Istio, which is listed in 32 company stacks and 30 developer stacks.
Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)
The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:
- Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
- Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
- Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
- Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
- Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
- Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.
In the past two years , the cloud native is becoming more and more popular , down-to-earth and ready for the production . Based on K8S and enriched by the service mesh framework like istio , the ecosystem is on the way to a bright future . Now I am a member of cloud native believer , I am keeping learning on that awesome field.
Pros of Istio
- Zero code for logging and monitoring10
- Service Mesh8
- Great flexibility7
- Ingress controller4
- Easy integration with Kubernetes and Docker3
- Powerful authorization mechanisms3
- Full Security3
- Resiliency3
Pros of Kubernetes
- Leading docker container management solution151
- Simple and powerful121
- Open source95
- Backed by google70
- The right abstractions55
- Scale services24
- Replication controller16
- Permission managment9
- Simple6
- Supports autoscaling5
- Cheap5
- Promotes modern/good infrascture practice3
- No cloud platform lock-in3
- Self-healing3
- Open, powerful, stable3
- Scalable3
- Reliable3
- A self healing environment with rich metadata2
- Captain of Container Ship2
- Quick cloud setup2
- Custom and extensibility1
- Expandable1
- Easy setup1
- Gke1
- Golang1
- Backed by Red Hat1
- Everything of CaaS1
- Runs on azure1
- Cloud Agnostic1
- Sfg1
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Cons of Istio
- Performance7
Cons of Kubernetes
- Poor workflow for development13
- Steep learning curve10
- Orchestrates only infrastructure4
- High resource requirements for on-prem clusters2
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What is Istio?
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