Likelihood to Recommend Ambassador is really well suited for scenarios were you need to give power and freedom to your developers so they can take advantage of the self-service approach. One of the few scenarios I can not recommend using Ambassador is in the case you are planning to not using Kubernetes as it is a solution designed to work specifically on that platform
Read full review K8s should be avoided - If your application works well without being converted into microservices-based architecture & fits correctly in a VM, needs less scaling, have a fixed traffic pattern then it is better to keep away from Kubernetes. Otherwise, the operational challenges & technical expertise will add a lot to the OPEX. Also, if you're the one who thinks that containers consume fewer resources as compared to VMs then this is not true. As soon as you convert your application to a microservice-based architecture, a lot of components will add up, shooting your resource consumption even higher than VMs so, please beware. Kubernetes is a good choice - When the application needs quick scaling, is already in microservice-based architecture, has no fixed traffic pattern, most of the employees already have desired skills.
Read full review Pros Simple syntax Easy to understand Easy to install Read full review Complex cluster management can be done with simple commands with strong authentication and authorization schemes Exhaustive documentation and open community smoothens the learning process As a user a few concepts like pod, deployment and service are sufficient to go a long way Read full review Cons Documentation is not updated Implementing external authentication doesn't always work as described in the documentation The Administration console is limited Read full review Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally. The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively. Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking. Read full review Usability It's great! it's amazingly simple to use and the best part is the self-service approach. I also like how easy it is to add a new route to a endpoint with the mappings definition.
Read full review Support Rating Overall the support has been great and quick to answer the requests I've submitted in the past. I was originally using the community/open source version and I can't say it was the best experience I had, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great. I believe the biggest issue was that they refer to the documentation a lot but the documentation isn't updated regularly so I feel it's lagging behind the most recent versions.
Read full review Alternatives Considered They both offer about the same in terms of end goal and purpose of use and scenarios. However, Ambassador does way better in terms of simplifying the syntax and makes offer a little bit more of control by adding the concepts of hosts, mappings while staying away from a hard to read single file configuration.
Read full review Most of the required features for any orchestration tool or framework, which is provided by Kubernetes. After understanding all modules and features of the K8S, it is the best fit for us as compared with others out there.
Read full review Return on Investment Reduced downtime by redirecting traffic between DC. Reduced engineering time, don't have to dedicate 1 person to manage it. Increased training costs in the short term. Read full review Because of microservices, Kubernetes makes it easy to find the cost of each application easily. Like every new technology, initially, it took more resources to educate ourselves but over a period of time, I believe it's going to be worth it. Read full review ScreenShots