Say Goodbye to the Kubernetes Sidecar
Whether you're running a traditional Kubernetes sidecar mesh or Consul sidecars, Solo Enterprise for Istio's Ambient Mesh delivers security, observability, and resilience without a sidecar in every pod.
Cost Savings Estimator
Switching from sidecar to ambient mesh saves resources, reduces complexity, and lowers costs.
Why Teams Choose Us
“A sidecar in every pod means CPU and memory overhead we pay for on every single workload.”
Ambient Mesh moves mTLS and L4 security into a shared per-node ztunnel instead of a sidecar per pod, so you stop paying the sidecar resource tax on every workload.
“Upgrading or patching sidecars means touching every pod in the mesh, one workload at a time.”
With no sidecar to inject, restart, or patch per pod, Ambient Mesh removes a whole category of rollout and upgrade operations from your team’s plate.
“We can’t migrate every workload off sidecars at once, and an all-or-nothing cutover is too risky.”
Solo Enterprise for Istio supports sidecar and ambient workloads side by side, so you can migrate from sidecars to Ambient Mesh gradually, with zero downtime, instead of a single risky cutover.
Trust & compliance
SOC 2
Certification supports security and procurement review for regulated Kubernetes environments
OSS roots
Build on Envoy, Istio, Cilium, and Gateway API foundations for open source service mesh adoption.
CNCF maintainer status
keeps Solo.io engineers close to the projects shaping cloud native mesh standards.
FIPS builds
provide FIPS 140-2 validated options for service mesh security requirements.
Published SLAs
Define support expectations for enterprise service mesh operations.
Customer references
include production outcomes from teams running large-scale Kubernetes networking.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between a sidecar and sidecarless (Ambient) service mesh?
What's the difference between a sidecar and sidecarless (Ambient) service mesh?
A sidecar mesh injects a proxy container into every pod to handle mTLS, routing, and telemetry. Ambient Mesh moves that work into a shared per-node ztunnel and optional waypoint proxies, so you get the same security and observability without a sidecar in every pod.
Can I migrate from a Kubernetes sidecar mesh to Ambient Mesh without downtime?
Can I migrate from a Kubernetes sidecar mesh to Ambient Mesh without downtime?
Yes. Solo Enterprise for Istio supports sidecar and ambient workloads running side by side in the same mesh, so you can move workloads to Ambient Mesh gradually, with zero downtime, instead of an all-or-nothing cutover.
We're running Consul sidecars today. Can we move to Ambient Mesh?
We're running Consul sidecars today. Can we move to Ambient Mesh?
Yes. Teams migrating off Consul sidecars can move to Solo Enterprise for Istio's Ambient Mesh, gaining a sidecarless data plane along with Istio's broader ecosystem and Solo's enterprise support.
How much can Ambient Mesh save compared to a sidecar deployment?
How much can Ambient Mesh save compared to a sidecar deployment?
Savings depend on your pod density, traffic patterns, and cluster size. Use the Cost Savings Estimator above for a directional estimate, or request a demo for numbers scoped to your environment.
Is Ambient Mesh open source?
Is Ambient Mesh open source?
Yes. Ambient Mesh is a data plane mode of the open source Istio project. Solo Enterprise for Istio adds production support, extended CVE coverage, and enterprise features on top of it.
See Sidecarless Istio Ambient Mesh in Action
Request a demo to see how Ambient Mesh replaces your Kubernetes sidecar deployment, or compare service mesh options in the Buyer's Guide first.
