Kubernetes Ingress Controller Overview

Comparing popular Ingress Controllers for Kubernetes & laying out important considerations for choosing the right one for you

Even though Kubernetes was initially released in June 2014, you may be surprised to know that the Kubernetes Ingress API remains in beta as of Kubernetes v1.18. Since its inception to beta status in early 2016 (Kubernetes v1.2), the Ingress API focused heavily on portability and stayed fairly lightweight throughout. Most recently at KubeCon North America 2019, Christopher Luciano from IBM and Bowei Du from Google presented on “Evolving the Kubernetes Ingress APIs to GA and Beyond” detailing various improvements to the API (e.g. better path matching, new IngressClass resource, hostname wildcards). With the Ingress API on track to graduate to GA in v1.19, I put together a high-level comparison of existing, popular Ingress Controllers as well as some key considerations for choosing a solution.

Disclaimer: This article is a culmination of personal experience, public information, and anecdotal blog posts. This is NOT a comprehensive list of all Ingress Controllers in the…