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Istio vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Istio
Ranking in Service Mesh
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Service Mesh
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (13th), PaaS Clouds (11th), Cloud Management (22nd), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Agile and DevOps Services (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of Istio is 19.0%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 3.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Istio19.0%
VMware Tanzu Platform3.2%
Other77.8%
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

JETTI DINESH REDDY - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced microservice security and advanced traffic management and good authentification
When our developers are building the microservices, instead of imposing additional burdens or additional thinking on them, especially as part of network features such as traffic management, security, or observability, we deploy something from the infrastructure side, so developers need only focus…
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools
Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Istio provides tremendous value, particularly in offering TLS and authentication over microservice-to-microservice communication."
"Istio's best feature is that it's easy to use."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The load balancing, service application, and monitoring of the life of the service are valuable features. We use it for authentication of call services, load balancing the calls among the service providers on service instances, and monitoring the health of the services."
"The most valuable features of Istio are the traffic management and the Sidecar they inject, which greatly helps secure the application."
"The tool's mutual TLS stands out. It provides secure communication between services within the cluster. Additionally, Istio offers built-in telemetry and tracing with tools like Jaeger, which aids monitoring and troubleshooting."
"The security feature with mutual TLS authentication, which is identity-based, and the traffic management using cloud load balancers are very valuable."
"What I find particularly valuable about Istio is that it is free of cost."
"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."
"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."
"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."
"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"We never experienced any problems with scalability."
 

Cons

"Handling large-scale environments with proxies can strain resources, but horizontal scaling can improve fault tolerance."
"I've seen applications where they had such strict time constraints, they couldn't use Istio because it was too much overhead."
"Istio needs to be more mature and user-friendly."
"It would be good if the solution had more community forums."
"Based on my experience, the solution could be improved. They could simplify the learning process so that users can understand how its features work together, especially with components like Kibana. Learning about the different components is necessary. For instance, you need to understand the traffic flow, potential bottlenecks, and the architecture within Istio."
"For our use case that we applied it to, there were graph queues and the calls that were coming in. There were the things that we couldn't apply at the time, but it kind of worked."
"Istio has issues with performance."
"If someone doesn't understand Kubernetes, they'll have issues working with Istio."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."
"It is not easy to build a solution with containers. It has a graphical user interface, but you need to have a lot of knowledge of Linux and how to work in the command mode. Its support can also be improved. Currently, its biggest disadvantage is that it is a new product, and the clients prefer to go for a solution that has been in the market for a long time. There are not that many people who know this product."
"The infrastructure is quite challenging."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"The network control and security policies must be improved."
"The disaster recovery feature could be improved to provide better tracking of issues. I would also like to see the introduction of a dashboard view, for even further integration of all the areas that Mission Control looks at."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can deploy Istio free of cost and don't need to pay for it."
"It is on the less expensive side. It provides a significant saving for us in terms of cost and other things. It is open-source. We just download it from the open-source framework and use it."
"We use the tool's open-source version, so there are no hidden fees or additional costs associated with it."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."
"Its pricing is very competitive. We get around 70% or 75%, sometimes even 80%, discount on the product. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Istio?
Istio provides a significant saving for us in terms of costs since it is open source. However, Istio can still come at a price. It has a steep learning curve and might require more manpower hours ...
What do you like most about Istio?
We use Istio for Service Discovery and routing traffic.
What needs improvement with Istio?
The positive changes include improvements in efficiency, and while I think the free aspect is good, it's crucial to be aware that sometimes cost will give you a good way for your needs, meaning it ...
Which is better - OpenShift Container Platform or VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
Red Hat Openshift is ideal for organizations using microservices and cloud environments. I like that the platform is auto-scalable, which saves overhead time for developers. I think Openshift can b...
What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native ap...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Istio vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.