We tested Istio for a year. Powerful, but complex — dozens of CRDs, Mixer bottleneck, resource overhead. Linkerd 2 promises 80% of the functionality for 20% of the complexity. And it’s written in Rust.
Linkerd 2 vs. Istio¶
- Resource overhead: Linkerd proxy ~10 MB RAM vs. Envoy ~50 MB
- Latency: Linkerd adds <1 ms vs. Envoy ~3 ms
- Installation:
linkerd install | kubectl apply -f -in 2 minutes - Complexity: fewer CRDs, simpler configuration
What Linkerd Can Do¶
Mutual TLS, traffic metrics (golden signals), retries, timeouts. A dashboard with a real-time overview of service-to-service communication. Sufficient for most use cases.
What Linkerd Can’t Do (Yet)¶
Traffic splitting (canary deploys), fault injection, complex routing rules. Istio is ahead in these areas. But the Linkerd roadmap promises traffic splitting soon.
Our Verdict¶
For teams that want mutual TLS and observability without Istio’s complexity, Linkerd 2 is an excellent choice. We deploy it on smaller projects; Istio remains for complex setups.
The Best Service Mesh Is the One You Actually Deploy¶
Linkerd 2 proves that a service mesh doesn’t have to be complex. Simplicity is a feature, not a compromise.
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