The Top Service Mesh Solution
See how Solo Enterprise for Istio's cloud-native service mesh architecture compares to Linkerd, Cilium, Consul, Anthos Service Mesh, and OpenShift Service Mesh, then choose the right fit for your Kubernetes environment.
Service mesh capability comparison
Istio leads in 7 of 8 categories
Why Teams Choose Us
“There are six credible service mesh vendors, and no obvious way to compare them apples-to-apples.”
Solo Enterprise for Istio is built by the leading contributor to the Istio project, benchmarked directly against Linkerd, Cilium, Consul, Anthos, and OpenShift Service Mesh in the Buyer’s Guide.
“Our service mesh architecture works in the demo, but we’re not sure it holds up in production at scale.”
Solo Enterprise for Istio adds multi-cluster management, hardened security, and production support on top of the open source project already run at scale by cloud-native teams.
“We want a Kubernetes service mesh, not a vendor-specific reimplementation with its own quirks.”
Solo Enterprise for Istio stays close to upstream Istio, the CNCF service mesh project, instead of a proprietary fork, so what your team learns transfers and what you deploy stays compatible.
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 is a service mesh, and what are the benefits?
What is a service mesh, and what are the benefits?
A service mesh manages traffic, security, and observability between services in Kubernetes, so individual applications don't have to handle mTLS, retries, or telemetry themselves. The benefits include consistent zero-trust security, multi-cluster traffic management, and observability across your whole environment rather than per service.
How does Solo Enterprise for Istio compare to other service mesh vendors?
How does Solo Enterprise for Istio compare to other service mesh vendors?
The Service Mesh Buyer's Guide compares Solo Enterprise for Istio against Linkerd, Cilium, Consul, Google Anthos Service Mesh, and Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh on architecture, security, and cost of ownership, so you can see how each approaches service mesh differently.
What's the difference between a service mesh and something like AWS App Mesh?
What's the difference between a service mesh and something like AWS App Mesh?
AWS App Mesh is a proprietary mesh tied to the AWS ecosystem. Solo Enterprise for Istio is built on the open source, CNCF-hosted Istio project, so it runs consistently across clouds and on-prem rather than locking you into a single provider.
Is Solo's Kubernetes service mesh open source?
Is Solo's Kubernetes service mesh open source?
Yes. Solo Enterprise for Istio is built on upstream Istio, and Solo is the leading contributor to the open source project. Solo adds hardened builds, extended CVE support, and production support on top of it.
What's the best service mesh for Kubernetes?
What's the best service mesh for Kubernetes?
It depends on your architecture, team size, and whether you need sidecar or sidecarless (Ambient) deployment. The Buyer's Guide walks through how six platforms compare so you can match the mesh to your environment instead of picking blind.
See the Best Service Mesh for Your Kubernetes Environment
Request a demo to see how Solo Enterprise for Istio fits your Kubernetes environment, or compare all 6 platforms in the Buyer's Guide first.
