Feature Status

We have made changes to Istio’s release model. Starting with 0.3.0, releases will be delivered on a monthly cadence. Going forward, you can expect a new release towards the end of every month. You can download the current version by visiting our release page.

Each individual feature will go through the Alpha, Beta, and Stable phases. Please note that the phases are applied to individual features within the product, not to the product as a whole. Here is a high level description of what these labels means:

Feature Phase Definition

 AlphaBetaStable
PurposeDemo-able, works end-to-end but has limitationsUsable in production, not a toy anymoreDependable, production hardened
APINo guarantees on backward compatibilityAPIs are versionedDependable, production worthy. APIs are versioned, with automated version conversion for backward compatibility
PerformanceRandomRandomPerf (latency/scale) is quantified, documented, with guarantees against regression
Deprecation PolicyNoneWeak - 3 monthsDependable, Firm 1 year

Istio 0.3.0 features status

Below is our list of existing features and their current phases. This information will be updated after every monthly release.

Config / APIs

FeaturePhase
Mesh-wide SettingsAlpha
Basic config validationAlpha

Networking

FeaturePhase
Ingress ControllerAlpha
Basic EgressAlpha
Protocols HTTP 1.1Beta
Protocols HTTP 2.0Alpha
Protocols gRPCAlpha
Protocols TCPAlpha
Protocols: WebSocketAlpha
Protocols: MongoDBAlpha
Basic Routing RulesAlpha
Distributed Tracing Zipkin / JaegerBeta
Istioctl CLIAlpha

Integrations

FeaturePhase
Mixer Adapter Authoring ModelAlpha
Mixer Configuration ModelAlpha
Prometheus AdapterBeta
Local Logging Adapter (STDIO, File)Beta
Deny AdapterBeta
ListCheck AdapterBeta
Kubernetes Attributes AdapterAlpha
Statsd AdapterBeta
Tracing AdapterAlpha
Mixer Telemetry CollectionAlpha
Support for Mixer in Envoy (Mixer Client Library)Alpha

Environments

FeaturePhase
VM: Basic Envoy Installation, Interception and Registration for VMsAlpha
Kubernetes: Istio InstallationAlpha
Kubernetes: Envoy InstallationAlpha
Kubernetes: Pilot supports K8s Service DiscoveryAlpha
Kubernetes: Traffic InterceptionBeta
Integration into Consul Service DiscoveryAlpha
Bring your own service name/DNSAlpha

Security

FeaturePhase
Istio on Istio (secure istio components)Alpha
Incremental mTLSAlpha
VM Credential DistributionAlpha
Kubernetes Credential DistributionBeta
Istio mTLSBeta
Pluggable Key/Cert Support for Istio CABeta

User Interface

FeaturePhase
Grafana DashboardAlpha
Service GraphAlpha

Performance and Scalability

FeaturePhase
Initial scenarios, manual baselineAlpha
Reproducible oss characterization tool (Fortio)Alpha
Mixer bottom up perfAlpha

Please get in touch by joining our community if there are features you’d like to see in our future releases!