Calico

Calico by Tigera is an open-source networking and security solution specifically designed for containers and Kubernetes. It offers container networking and security capabilities for cloud-native applications. According to the vendor, Calico is suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. It caters to a wide range of professionals and industries, including DevOps engineers, cloud architects, network engineers, security professionals, IT operations teams, software developers, and technology, financial services, healthcare, and e-commerce companies.

Key Features

Granular access controls: Calico provides a network and security policy model for secure communication and supports WireGuard encryption. Administrators can define policies based on various criteria such as IP addresses, ports, and protocols, allowing for fine-grained control over network traffic, according to the vendor.

Full Kubernetes network policy support: Calico seamlessly integrates with the original reference implementation of Kubernetes network policy. Users can define network policies at the pod level, controlling traffic flow between pods based on labels and selectors. This feature enables network segmentation and the enforcement of security policies in Kubernetes environments, according to the vendor.

Active community: Project Calico has an active community with over 200 contributors from various companies. The vendor states that this community drives innovation and development, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.

Data plane choice: Calico supports multiple data planes, including eBPF, standard Linux, and Windows. This flexibility allows users to choose the data plane that best suits their specific requirements and environment, optimizing performance and resource utilization based on infrastructure and workload characteristics, according to the vendor.

Interoperability: Calico seamlessly works with non-Kubernetes workloads, enabling organizations to leverage its networking and security capabilities across different environments. According to the vendor, Calico provides consistent and reliable networking and security policies for both Kubernetes and non-Kubernetes workloads, making it a unified solution for the entire infrastructure.

Optimized performance: Calico is built for optimal performance with lower CPU consumption, enabling users to maximize cluster efficiency. The vendor claims that it ensures high throughput and low latency for container networking, allowing applications to perform at their best. Calico is also optimized for scalability, according to the vendor, enabling clusters to grow without sacrificing performance.