Google Cloud Service Mesh vs Istio
| Google Cloud Service Mesh | Istio | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Paid from | — | Free |
| Open source | No | No |
| Platforms | Web | Linux, macOS, self-hosted |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Paid from | 0.5 /mo | — |
| Deployment model | hybrid | self_hosted |
| Proxy architecture | both | both |
| mTLS support | Yes | Yes |
| Traffic policies | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-cluster support | Yes | Yes |
| Supported platforms | GKE on Google Cloud; Google Distributed Cloud software-only for VMware; Google Distributed Cloud software-only for bare metal; GKE on AWS; GKE on Azure; Amazon EKS; Microsoft AKS | Kubernetes, OpenShift |
Both are listed in Best Service Mesh Platforms. On Inferse, Istio scores higher on our published basis.