Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache APISIX VS Istio

Compare Apache APISIX VS Istio and see what are their differences

Apache APISIX logo Apache APISIX

Apache APISIX is a dynamic, real-time, high-performance Cloud-Native API gateway, based on the Nginx library and etcd.

Istio logo Istio

Open platform to connect, manage, and secure microservices
  • Apache APISIX Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-06-27
  • Istio Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-01

Apache APISIX features and specs

  • High Performance
    Apache APISIX is built on top of Nginx and designed to handle thousands of requests per second. This makes it suitable for high-performance applications and services requiring efficient request processing.
  • Dynamic Configuration
    APISIX allows for dynamic load balancing, routing, and plugin configuration without the need to restart or reload the service, offering robust flexibility and reducing downtime.
  • Extensive Plugin Ecosystem
    APISIX offers a wide range of plugins to extend its functionalities, covering authentication, security, traffic control, and more, allowing for customization and scalability.
  • Open Source and Community-driven
    Being an Apache project, APISIX is open-source and actively maintained by a community of contributors, ensuring continuous improvement and support.
  • Multi-language Support
    APISIX supports multi-language plugins such as Java, Go, and Python, thereby allowing developers to write plugins in the language they are most comfortable with.

Possible disadvantages of Apache APISIX

  • Complexity of Setup
    Setting up Apache APISIX can be complex for new users, requiring familiarity with Nginx and understanding its configuration model, which might involve a steep learning curve.
  • Documentation Gaps
    While the project is actively improved, some users might experience gaps or inconsistencies in the documentation, posing challenges during setup and customization.
  • Limited Enterprise Support
    Compared to some commercial API management solutions, APISIX might lack dedicated enterprise-level support, which could be a concern for organizations requiring rapid troubleshooting and expert assistance.
  • Evolving Features
    As a relatively new project, some features and components may still be evolving, which means users may encounter changes that require adaptation and adjustments over time.

Istio features and specs

  • Traffic Management
    Istio provides powerful traffic management capabilities, including fine-grained control over the flow of traffic and API calls between services.
  • Observability
    Istio enhances observability with metrics, logs, and tracing, making it easier to monitor microservices and gain insights into performance and behavior.
  • Security
    Istio improves security by providing service-to-service and end-user authentication, as well as powerful policy enforcement for access control.
  • Policy Enforcement
    Istio allows for the enforcement of organizational policy and access control, making it easier to ensure compliance and governance.
  • Service Resilience
    Capabilities such as circuit breakers, retries, and timeouts make applications more resilient to failures and ensure greater availability.
  • Platform Agnostic
    Istio is designed to be platform agnostic and can be deployed on any Kubernetes platform, making it highly flexible.

Possible disadvantages of Istio

  • Complexity
    Istio adds a significant amount of complexity to a system, which can make it harder to manage, especially for teams without experience in service meshes.
  • Resource Consumption
    Istio can be resource-intensive, requiring additional CPU, memory, and storage, which can lead to higher operational costs.
  • Learning Curve
    There is a steep learning curve associated with Istio, making it challenging for new users to get up to speed quickly.
  • Operational Overhead
    Managing and operating Istio might require dedicated personnel and can introduce operational overhead, including the need for monitoring and updating the control plane and sidecar proxies.
  • Latency
    The addition of sidecar proxies and other Istio components can introduce some latency in the network traffic between services.

Apache APISIX videos

Getting started with Apache APISIX Dashboard

More videos:

  • Review - Getting started with Apache APISIX
  • Review - APIs security with Apache APISIX

Istio videos

Istio Service Mesh Explained

More videos:

  • Review - What is Istio?
  • Review - Module 1: Istio - Kubernetes - Getting Started - Installation and Sample Application Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache APISIX and Istio)
Monitoring Tools
67 67%
33% 33
Developer Tools
23 23%
77% 77
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Apache APISIX might be a bit more popular than Istio. We know about 71 links to it since March 2021 and only 51 links to Istio. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache APISIX mentions (71)

  • Announcing Integration between Apache APISIX and open-appsec WAF
    Apache APISIX is a modern, flexible, and high-performance open-source API gateway solution designed to handle various use cases in microservices and cloud-native architectures. Its primary purpose is to facilitate API management by serving as a gateway for managing, securing, and optimizing API traffic between clients and backend services. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • open-source API gateway solutions and their managed offerings.
    Kong and APISIX, two popular open-source #APIGateway solutions. #kong looks versatile Unified Gateway but how it fares against #APISIX backed by a similar enterprise API7 offering. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Free tier API with Apache APISIX
    Lots of service providers offer a free tier of their service. The idea is to let you kick their service's tires freely. If you need to go above the free tier at any point, you'll likely stay on the service and pay. In this day and age, most services are online and accessible via an API. Today, we will implement a free tier with Apache APISIX. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • OpenResty on NixOS for an API Gateway
    We have been using Apache APISIX for a while now. It is a high-performance, cloud-native API gateway solution. It also has a nice dashboard for managing APIs. However, I have been looking for a simpler and more portable solution for our use case. In particular, I want to be able manage the API gateway as a NixOS service so that the configuration can be tested and redeployed easily. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Advanced URL rewriting with Apache APISIX
    I spoke at Swiss PgDay in Switzerland in late June. The talk was about how to create a no-code API with the famous PostgreSQL database, the related PostgREST, and Apache APISIX, of course. I already wrote about the idea in a previous post. However, I wanted to improve it, if only slightly. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
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Istio mentions (51)

  • Evaluating 2 Popular Service Meshes
    The decision to add a Service Mesh to an application comes down to how your application communicates between itself. If for instance your design is heavily asynchronous and relies on events and messages, then a service mesh isn't going to make a lot of sense. If however, you've built an application that is heavily reliant on APIs between itself, then a service mesh is a great piece of technology that can make this... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Kubernetes Multi-Cloud Multi-Cluster Strategy Overview
    IstioIstio is one of the leading Kubernetes service mesh solutions. You can use Istio to set up multi-cluster networking, allowing workloads in one cluster to interact with those in other clusters. This gives you more flexibility in where and how you deploy your apps. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Using Istio Resources with nxs-universal-chart
    Istio is an open-source project that handles routing problems arising in microservices-based applications. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • 26 Top Kubernetes Tools
    Istio is a service mesh that enables simpler networking, traffic management, service discovery, and monitoring for your Kubernetes clusters. It coordinates communications between your app's microservices, providing much more control than the plain Kubernetes Service model. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • eBPF, sidecars, and the future of the service mesh
    Bart: You raise a crucial point about the human aspect. While we address technical challenges, the time spent resolving errors detracts from other tasks. The community has developed products and projects to tackle these concerns and costs. One such example is Istio with Ambient Mesh. Another approach is sidecarless service meshes like Cilium Cluster Mesh. Can you explain what Ambient Mesh is and how it enhances... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache APISIX and Istio, you can also consider the following products

Prometheus - An open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.

linkerd - Linkerd is an ultralight service mesh for Kubernetes. It gives you observability, reliability, and security without requiring any code changes.

API7 cloud - API management platform for hybrid and multi-cloud

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

etcd - A distributed, reliable key-value store for the most critical data of a distributed system

KintoHub - A modern fullstack app platform