How are others doing Kubernetes networking? What are emerging trends, challenges and solutions?
State of Kubernetes Networking 2025
We are pleased to share the findings from the State of Kubernetes Networking 2025 survey, the first in-depth look at how Kubernetes networking is implemented and managed across the global community. Conducted by Isovalent, the creators of Cilium, the survey ran over the summer of 2025, gathering hundreds of responses from practitioners operating Kubernetes in production. The insights collected have been analyzed and distilled into this report, providing a detailed view of how teams design, secure, and scale their clusters using modern networking technologies powered by eBPF.
The goal of the report
Our goal was to understand what Kubernetes networking really looks like in production today and what challenges lie ahead for the teams responsible for running it. Most clusters begin with a simple setup, such as a CNI and a service proxy, but quickly expand to include Ingress controllers, load balancers, service meshes, BGP daemons, and other components. With more than 70 networking tools listed in the CNCF Landscape, we had observed that many production environments combined four or more technologies. This survey set out to validate that assumption and better understand how those combinations take shape in practice.
The report examines where and how teams run their clusters, which CNIs and networking tools they use, how far they have progressed in adopting newer standards and capabilities such as the Gateway API and runtime security, and who within organizations is responsible for networking and security operations.
Much like a census, the findings reveal patterns, highlight pain points, and provide a clear picture of the technologies, practices, and people shaping Kubernetes networking in 2025.
See a few sample extracts and screenshots from the report below. Download the full State of Kubernetes Networking 2025 report to explore all the data and insights.
Get the report
The report was compiled by us out of the questions we asked, and summarizes our findings and insights on about 25 pages. Click on the button to get access to your copy.
State of Kubernetes Networking 2025
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out!
Nico Vibert, Principal Technical Marketing Engineer
Nico Vibert is a Principal Technical Marketing Engineer at Isovalent, the company behind the open-source cloud-native solution Cilium. Prior to joining Isovalent, Nico worked in many different roles - operations and support, design and architecture, and technical pre-sales - at companies such as HashiCorp, VMware, and Cisco. In his current role, Nico focuses primarily on creating content to make networking a more approachable field and regularly speaks at events like KubeCon and Cisco Live. Nico has held over 15 networking certifications, including the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert CCIE (# 22990). Nico is the co-author of the "Cilium: Up and Running" O'Reilly book and is the Lead Subject Matter Expert on the Cilium Certified Associate (CCA) certification.
Roland Wolters, Head of Technical Marketing, Isovalent
Roland Wolters is Head of Technical Marketing at Isovalent where he and his team are responsible for communicating the technical value of eBPF, Cilium, and Isovalent Cilium Enterprise to customers, prospects, and partners. His areas of expertise include security, automation, and open source. He is a keen driver of agile processes and would be lost without his Kanban boards. Outside of work, he is usually most remembered for trying to frantically keep up with his rambunctious young triplets.