Linkerd

Linkerd is the service mesh that proves you don't need Istio's complexity to get mTLS, observability, and traffic management in Kubernetes. Its Rust-based proxy adds 40-400% less latency than Istio, uses a fraction of the memory, and mTLS is on by default — not a configuration adventure. Install it in five minutes, not five days.

If you need a service mesh and want the simplest operational experience, Linkerd is the answer. Istio has more features (traffic mirroring, advanced fault injection, Wasm extensibility) but consumes 25-50GB more memory at scale and requires a dedicated team. Consul Connect (HashiCorp) bridges service mesh with service discovery. Cilium Service Mesh uses eBPF for kernel-level networking.

The catch: Linkerd's simplicity means fewer knobs to turn. If you need sophisticated traffic routing, Wasm plugins, or multi-cluster federation, Istio's feature set wins. Buoyant (Linkerd's company) changed the license to require a paid enterprise subscription for production use — check the current terms before committing. The CNCF graduated status doesn't override the license change.