--- title: Calico Reviews meta_title: 'Calico Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 42 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Calico works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 42 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-06-30' parent_category: name: "DevSecOps\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t" url: https://www.g2.com/categories/devsecops --- # Calico Reviews **Vendor:** Tigera **Category:** [Container Security Tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/container-security-tools) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 42 ## About Calico The Calico platform, built on the most trusted open-source technologies in Kubernetes — Calico Open Source, Istio, Envoy, and eBPF — provides a single management plane for secure networking and observability for AI workloads. It can be deployed as Calico Cloud, a fully-managed SaaS platform, or Calico Enterprise, a self-managed platform. Calico works with popular managed Kubernetes services such as AKS, EKS, and GKE, as well as self-managed Kubernetes distributions including Red Hat OpenShift, SUSE/Rancher, VMware Tanzu, and Mirantis. Calico is the only platform with a pluggable data plane architecture enabling support for multiple data planes, including eBPF, nftables, standard Linux, VPP, and Windows. Calico secures 1 million+ clusters daily, and is used by leading companies, including NVIDIA, RBC, Bloomberg, Chipotle, GoDaddy, and Upwork. ## Calico Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users find Calico's **ease of use** remarkable, with quick installation and intuitive configuration documented well. (19 reviews) - Users value the **enhanced security features** of Calico, appreciating its comprehensive network policy capabilities and visibility. (15 reviews) - Users rave about the **knowledgeable and responsive customer support** provided by Calico, enhancing their experience significantly. (14 reviews) - Users value the **transformative features** of Calico, enhancing visibility, security, and simplifying network management in Kubernetes. (11 reviews) - Users value the **ease of managing network policies** in Calico, enhancing security and organization without performance issues. (11 reviews) - Users value the **comprehensive visibility** Calico provides, enabling effective data visualization and network troubleshooting. (10 reviews) - Easy Setup (9 reviews) - Setup Ease (8 reviews) - Integrations (6 reviews) - Monitoring (6 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find **Calico's complex setup** challenging, especially for beginners, requiring more straightforward guides to navigate effectively. (7 reviews) - Users find the **complexity** of Calico's interface and setup overwhelming, especially for beginners and resource management. (6 reviews) - Users find the **difficult configuration** of Calico Cloud to be confusing, impacting their initial setup experience. (6 reviews) - Users find the **difficult learning curve** of Calico challenging, especially for tech novices during onboarding. (6 reviews) - Users find the **difficult setup** of Calico confusing, especially if they're new or inexperienced with Kubernetes. (6 reviews) - Learning Curve (6 reviews) - Users note **missing features** in Calico, including limited enterprise options and lack of built-in service mesh capabilities. (6 reviews) - Users often face **configuration difficulties** with Calico, impacting the ease of setup and ongoing management. (5 reviews) - Users find that **expertise is required** to effectively navigate Calico's complexities, especially for beginners in networking. (5 reviews) - Users find **configuration complex** , requiring time and effort to troubleshoot and optimize the setup effectively. (4 reviews) ## Calico Reviews ### 1. Effortless Kubernetes Networking with Top-Notch Security and Performance **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shahrukh K. | Program Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 13, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico makes network management simple and reliable. I like how it handles Kubernetes networking with strong security and clear visibility. It’s lightweight, performs well at scale, and integrates smoothly with existing infrastructure. The policies are easy to configure, and troubleshooting is much faster compared to other tools. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Calico works great overall, but upgrading between versions can occasionally cause minor compatibility issues. I’ve also noticed that troubleshooting complex network policies can take extra time. The UI and monitoring options could be more intuitive for beginners who prefer visual tools over command-line configurations. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico solves the challenge of managing container networking and security at scale. It provides a clear way to control traffic between services and enforce policies consistently. This has improved overall network performance, reduced configuration errors, and given me more confidence in maintaining secure, stable Kubernetes environments. ### 2. Calico Cloud Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gautam R. | Software Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud is a leader in delivering dynamic, zero-trust networking and security for Kubernetes. Its end-to-end integration with leading cloud-native platforms makes it so easy to apply workload-level policy enforcement. I especially like the eBPF-based data plane, which provides high performance and visibility without loss of control. The DNS policy management and real-time threat detection capabilities are intuitive to use, and the UI is clean and developer-friendly. It makes compliance and microsegmentation a lot easier, particularly in multi-cluster and hybrid deployments. **What do you dislike about Calico?** While Calico Cloud provides great security features, the learning curve can be steep for teams that are new to Kubernetes networking. The initial setup and policy configurations may seem overwhelming without prior experience. The documentation, though extensive, could use more examples from real-world scenarios and better troubleshooting guidance. Also, some advanced features are closely linked to enterprise licensing, which could restrict accessibility for smaller teams or early-stage projects. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud helps us tackle the important challenge of securing east-west traffic in our Kubernetes clusters by enforcing detailed, identity-based network policies. It removes blind spots in service-to-service communication with eBPF-powered observability and real-time flow logs. This makes it easier to spot misconfigurations and potential threats. Calico also makes it simpler to meet security standards by providing audit-ready policy visibility and DNS policy control. As a result, we have reduced our incident response time, improved workload isolation, and gained more confidence in scaling secure, multi-cloud Kubernetes deployments. ### 3. Effortless Network Policy Management with Calico **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raj S. | Inside Sales Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 06, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** I like that Calico makes it easy to manage network policies in Kubernetes. It keeps things secure and organized, without slowing everything down. Simple, fast, and reliable. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Sometimes, Calico can be a bit tricky to set up, especially for beginners. If you’re not familiar with networking or Kubernetes, it might feel overwhelming at first. More straightforward guides would help. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico solves the problem of managing secure and efficient network traffic in Kubernetes. It helps control which apps can talk to each other, keeps things safe from unwanted access, and improves performance. This gives me confidence that my apps are running smoothly and securely. ### 4. Crucial platform for Kubernetes security **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vikas M. | Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** What I found impressive was how Calico Cloud made the complex task of securing Kubernetes workloads much easier. I loved the fact that I could define granular network policies and immediately see the impact of the policies with traffic logs. The existing dashboards were very useful in understanding pod communication, potential threats and for visualizing gaps in compliance without having to flip back and forth between tools. This gave us both control and visibility in one spot, which is a rarity. **What do you dislike about Calico?** I came upon one hurdle in the beginning of the onboarding — the documentation is quite comprehensive but doesn't take into consideration a reasonable amount of Kubernetes knowledge. I believe there are opportunities to improve straightforward policy creation through visualization or templating. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud aids us with achieving cloud compliance goals by providing enhanced visibility into our network activity with audit logs and granular policy controls. It enables us to enforce better segmentation, avoid unnecessary communication between services, and provide evidence of compliance for security reviews. To validate our posture during audits, it significantly reduces time spent to prep for an audit and gives our security team comfort in our cloud infrastructure. ### 5. Why I like Calico Cloud for Zero Trust Networking **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Harsh B. | ServiceNow Developer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** I like best about Calico Cloud is how simple it makes controlling traffic inside Kubernetes. You can easily set clear rules on who can talk to who, which really tightens security. Also, the visibility and troubleshooting tools save a lot of time if you actually know what’s going on instead of guessing. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Only Downside i found is it little complicated to learn in the beginning but once you get handy with this you can easily use it. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** It mainly fixes the headache of securing and managing traffic inside Kubernetes. Without it, it’s hard to know who’s talking to who and whether that’s even allowed. With Calico, I can easily set strict rules, block unwanted access, and keep everything more secure. Plus, the traffic insights help me catch problems quickly, which saves time and keeps things running smoothly. ### 6. Reliable cloud platform with solid support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paras D. | SE - Technology L2, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** What I like best about Calico Cloud is its strong focus on security and observability. The way it integrates with Kubernetes for network policies and zero-trust security feels seamless. Plus, the real-time visibility into workloads and traffic flows is super helpful for debugging and compliance. **What do you dislike about Calico?** The UI can feel a bit overwhelming at first, especially for new users. There’s definitely a learning curve if you’re not already familiar with Kubernetes networking concepts. Also, some advanced features could use more detailed documentation or tutorials. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud helps us secure and manage Kubernetes workloads with fine-grained network policies and zero-trust security. It simplifies enforcing security at scale, especially across multiple clusters. The built-in observability tools also give us better insights into traffic patterns and potential vulnerabilities, which helps us troubleshoot faster and stay compliant. ### 7. A powerful Cloud Native Security Solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Erick Vincent Steve G. | IT Support I, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 20, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** What I like best about Calico Cloud is its deep integration with Kubernetes and its strong support for eBPF, which enables high-performance networking and observability. The user interface is intuitive, and the policies are easy to configure using either YAML or the GUI. It also supports zero-trust security models out of the box, which is essential in modern cloud-native environments. **What do you dislike about Calico?** One downside of Calico Cloud is that the initial setup. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud helps us improve container security and stay compliant with cloud regulations. It lets us create network policies to control traffic between pods, monitor activity, and detect threats in real time. This makes it easier to secure our workloads and meet compliance standards like PCI and SOC 2. ### 8. Simple, Secure and Easy to implement **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 03, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico is fast, simple, and secure. It gives the Kubernetes cluster solid networking capabilities and lets you control who can talk to what with network policies in easy way. It is very easy to implement in your cluster and can be easily integrated with the resources in your infrastructure. In case of any issues we can also use thier customer support for fast resolution. Calico is the only CNI we use globally in our organisation, cuz it is simple and secure. **What do you dislike about Calico?** As Calico is great for security Policies, It lacks built-in service mesh features, unlike something in other providers. It is not built for deep observability, You won’t get detailed flow visualization unless you add extra tools for it. As compared to pros, there will be nothing to dislike in Calico. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** These are the main reasons for using Calico Cloud, it manages Kubernetes networking and security platform. Calico simplifies complex networking tasks while adding powerful security. It has built-in threat detection. we can use it for real-time traffic visibility. Its centralized control plane makes managing multiple clusters much simpler. Calico Cloud also provides detailed audit logs. It is most suitable for production grade application which needs high secure infrastrature. As a financial sector organisation we need very high secure systems and calico helps us for that. ### 9. Robust Kubernetes Security with Room for Improvement **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Architecture & Planning | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 17, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud excels in providing enterprise-grade security features for Kubernetes environments. The platform offers exceptional network policy management and real-time visibility into container traffic. I particularly appreciate the intuitive policy builder that helps create and implement zero-trust security models. The live troubleshooting tools are invaluable for diagnosing connectivity issues, and the integration with existing cloud platforms is seamless. The dynamic threat detection and automated security controls have significantly improved our cluster security posture. **What do you dislike about Calico?** The initial setup and configuration process can be challenging for teams without extensive Kubernetes expertise. The documentation, while comprehensive, could be more user-friendly with better examples and use cases. Some advanced features require considerable fine-tuning to work optimally, which can be time-consuming. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** The pricing structure could be more transparent, and the cost can be significant for larger deployments. Additionally, the UI occasionally feels sluggish when handling multiple clusters, and some error messages could be more descriptive to help with troubleshooting. ### 10. Evaluating Calico Cloud: Secure, Scalable, and Kubernetes-Ready **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** VIJAY H. | QA Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 16, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud enforces identity-aware microsegmentation and least-privilege access by default. It doesn’t just rely on IPs—workload identity (like Kubernetes labels and service accounts) is used to define policies. This helps achieve zero-trust security across clusters and clouds. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Despite having a clean UI, the underlying concepts (like eBPF, policy tiers, workload identities) can be challenging for teams new to Kubernetes networking and security. Proper onboarding/training is often needed. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Lack of Fine-Grained Network Security in Kubernetes > Solution: Calico Cloud allows me to define fine-grained, identity-based network policies that go beyond IP addresses — using labels, namespaces, and service accounts to tightly control traffic between workloads. ### 11. My experience about calico **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** It’s ability to provide zero-trust security, real-time observability, and scalable networking for Kubernetes, all in a managed, easy-to-use platform. It makes securing and monitoring microservices seamless across cloud and hybrid environments. **What do you dislike about Calico?** What I dislike most about Calico Cloud is that its advanced features can have a steep learning curve, especially for teams new to Kubernetes networking or zero-trust models. While powerful, it can take time to fully understand and implement effectively. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud solves key challenges around Kubernetes networking, security, and observability. It enforces zero-trust policies, enables secure service-to-service communication, and provides real-time visibility into workloads. This helps me ensure secure, compliant, and reliable applications without managing complex infrastructure manually — saving time and reducing risk. ### 12. Calico cloud offers very good network security for kubernetes and multi-cluster orchestration **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vineet B. | SDET-2, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** It's helpful in threat detection and robust logging system which will help in quick trtoubleshooting **What do you dislike about Calico?** free tier offers limited support and the migration from existing vendors requires some good amount of effort **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** We did a POC on the calico cloud for mult cluster orchestration with security embedded in itself. Planning to migrate to it. ### 13. A very good CNI solution, with some shortcomings **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ed M. | IB Platform Engineering, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 11, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud is a great CNI solution, versatile regarding the supported protocols it will easily scale in most cloud, hybrid, and on-prem deployments. The BGP backend makes it easier to manage routes at scale, and it can integrate with BGP-only layer 3 datacenter fabrics as well. Installation is quick, and thanks to a well-documented set of CRD resources, configuration is also pretty straightforward. Calico also bundles the whole Tigera security/observability suite, which comes in handy to write more complex network policies which extend to hosts. The built-in manager web UI is also useful to quickly visualise what policies are deployed in any environment. **What do you dislike about Calico?** There are some shortcomings with some of the enterprise features, some of them suffer from small bugs which still have not been solved. Although support is quick to react, it can take a long time to obtain a proper bug fix in a next release. The current network policy implementation, although solid, also suffers from limitations in terms of the selectors, which can lead to some rather complex workarounds. Also, the manager web UI is very limited and will not help a lot when troubleshooting denied flows. Most of the time, learning to use Kibana which is part of the installation and writing KQL queries will be more useful. Although installation is easy, uninstalling Calico can be a bit difficult as the Tigera operator does not clean the installed resources. You will have to locate the remnants yourself, and delete them. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud enables us to extend Kubernetes network policies, and unify the network security operations under a single Kubernetes-based declarative worflow. It provides a way to author, deploy, manage, and monitor security policies in any Kubernetes cluster. ### 14. Review for calico cloud **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yashavant N. | Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 16, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** I like how Calico Cloud provides strong zero-trust security and deep observability for Kubernetes workloads. **What do you dislike about Calico?** I dislike that some advanced features are only available in the paid version, limiting open-source flexibility. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Securing Kubernetes workloads in production. ### 15. G2 Cloud Review **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Logistics and Supply Chain | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2025 **What do you like best about Calico?** I like UI to amange my services and it is cost effective, others like Amazon and azure are to expensive. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Not offer enough space for first time free user, 😞also 3rd party app count also low **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud helps us to secure our Kubernetes workloads with detailed network policies and zero trust controls, so its more easy to stay compliant and manage traffic better. ### 16. Great Container Security Solution with zero trust security approach **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Edmond G. | DevOps Lead, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 29, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud addressed various security challenges for container platform, it extended l7 network policy capabilities with powerful & fleaxible configuration options and by default support zero trust security model. This helps us to be able to manage calico configurations via both gitops platform & application ci/cd processes in a secure way to meet requirements from vairous teams without many operation overheads. This helps boost the team efficiency. It's a painless implementation process and easy quick to setup. Calico Cloud offers full package of container security features, e.g. runtime security, intrution detections, in-cluseter waf, observability, etc. more than just advanced network policy. Tigera support is knowledgable and the provided training videos help quickly get familiar with its observability tooling and troubleshooting processes. **What do you dislike about Calico?** alerting & 3-rd party integrations hopefully can be improved. network policy constructions user experience requires lots of domain knowledge, this might be difficult for beginners. wireguard & l7 logging configs conflicts happened before, hopefully it will be resolved in the near future. the dashboard has lots of information and might be confusing when you use it at the begining, it's a bit complex to use it and understand the end to end troubleshooting process **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** protect N-S, W-E traffic and adding observabilities and container runtime protections ### 17. Calico Cloud: Near-perfect container networking and network security solution **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alex W. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 23, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** Run bare-metal, self-hosted Kubernetes: Calico Cloud provides first-class support for these setups. Supports advanced networking features: It offers IPv6 and WireGuard support for versatile network configurations. Enables granular control: Egress gateways and eBPF support enable you to precisely manage traffic flow. Value clear guidance: The documentation is of excellent quality. A user-friendly interface: The web-based UI is both intuitive and comprehensive. Prioritize ongoing support: Calico provides professional support, including a dedicated Customer Success Engineer (CSEs) for weekly consultations. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Pricing Model: Calico Cloud charges per vCPU, which can be expensive for high-core machines. For example, a single 32-core machine might be billed as 16 nodes, leading to high monthly costs. Deployment Complexity: The product requires managing resources across 18 Kubernetes namespaces, increasing deployment complexity. Limited Functionality: Currently, Calico Cloud doesn't support VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding), which restricts routing table configuration options. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Simplified Networking: Calico takes care of IP Address Management (IPAM) and automates BGP peering with top-of-rack switches. This frees me from manual configuration and ensures efficient network allocation. Streamlined Audits: Calico generates reports that meet SOC 2 compliance standards. This saves significant effort during audits by providing readily available documentation. Granular Security: Calico allows me to manage firewall rules down to individual Pods. This granular control strengthens security by tailoring protection to specific workloads. Enhanced Visibility: Calico's extensive logging and metrics enable me to visualize traffic flows within my Kubernetes environment. This improved observability helps troubleshoot issues and optimize network performance. ### 18. Great tool for network policy generation and cluser/container scanning **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David K. | Senior Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 23, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Network policy generation ardous task done manually. The network policy recommendations are great and make this a breeze. The network observabilty tool is wonderful to observe questionable traffic and possible network policy problems. Everything you need to easily work with network policy is right there. DNS rules are a major plus. The setup is really easy. Support is great. **What do you dislike about Calico?** The recommended network policies sometimes generate overlappying/duplicate rules. I'd like to see better integration with Azure DevOps for container scanning. If no endpoints exist the monitor shows that their were denied flows (this happens in Allow Tigera tier). **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico gives us real time container scanning in the cluster as well as manual container scanning for use in breaking builds. I feel at peace knowing I'm aware of all traffic in and out of our clusters, ### 19. Calico Cloud Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** It is providing all insights in one place, you can visualize your data flowing and troubleshoot your network policy easily. Easy of implementation, customer support is very reliable, **What do you dislike about Calico?** I can see other CNI vendors are using latest technologies but calico still using iptables. which makes your network slow in comparison to eBPF. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** It shows visibility of your network policies, and which make it easy to debug, because without it debug network blocked policy is nightmare. ### 20. Great solution for managing network policy and image scanning **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 31, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** The network policy recommendations are a great feature and provide an excellent starting point for policy generation. The network observability tool combined with the Kibana logs provides full visibility into what is happening with respect to allowed and denied traffic throughout the cluster. Calico Cloud makes managing network policy vastly easier. Tigera support is great; they have been very responsive. **What do you dislike about Calico?** The pricing model is based on core counts, making it rather expensive both for compute-heavy clusters and for clusters that have a large number of smaller nodes. Registry scanning could be better integrated into the product. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud enables us to easily view and manage network policy, and provides container image scanning within our clusters. ### 21. Constantly improving, cost-effective container and network security platform. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 22, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Very easy to integrate into kubernetes, deployment is quick and painless. Tigera support is knowledgeable and helpful. The network security policy recommendations are excellent. Great visibility of traffic within the cluster. **What do you dislike about Calico?** The pricing model may not be that friendly for compute-intensive environments, but offers much more value than traditional network security appliances. Configuration can be a little tricky to dial-in, but once setup properly it's basically "hands-free". Many namespaces and pods are deployed as part of the installation, which comes with more overhead albeit minimal. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use Calico Cloud is our primary tool for securing our containerized workloads via policy including egress filtering via FQDNs, anomaly and threat detection, and namespace isolation to name a few. ### 22. Security at its finest **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 01, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** It is an easy and customizable way to use cloud based orchestration Kubernetes and to hae workflow editors to scale up, scale out, and focus on devsecops, Ioc's and malicious threat actors. This is thought of and done in the perspective of devsecops and cloud practitioners. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Nothing - it is easy to use and not very hard to get value in time. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Using Kubernetes in the form of devsecops and container runtime. Also cloud security posture management has been an important area. ### 23. Useful tools for those who need them **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** As a relatively new kubernetes user, Calico's policy, image scanning and networking dashboards provided useful insights to our cluster **What do you dislike about Calico?** I really wish parts of the toolset were open source so it would be easier to show the tools to others and/or make them more available for longer testing periods. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ensuring container are meeting certain security specifications. ### 24. Allows us to deploy granular network policies, and empower app teams to control their own workloads. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Food & Beverages | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Granular control for admins, while giving app teams workload observability. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Being a SaaS, Calico Cloud lacks some of the configration options found in the Enterprise offering. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network policies based on FQDN. ### 25. Comprehensive observability platform. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andris J. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud offers many features. It brings observability, security, firewall and isolation into your Kubernetes cluster. Support is very helpful. Tigera also offers training on how to use Calico Cloud and support is very helpful and responds quickly. Tigera actively monitors customer feedback and implements additional features that customers would like see in Tigera Cloud. They offer pay as you go model or reserved capacity model, which ever fits you best and also works together with customers to bring them best value offer. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Initial setup and configuration is somewhat complicated, but none the less, support was very helpful with issues that we had encountered. Calico Cloud might feel pricy, but they offer best observability solution on the market. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have multi-tenant cluster and we use Calico Cloud to provide isolation between tenants to avoid any possible data breaches. Calico cloud bring observability tools to easily indentify outgoing and incoming traffic and easily monitor it. ### 26. Great Product and a phenomenal company to work with **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David C. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico gives us essential visibility and control of network flow within our Kubenetes environment. It simplifies what would be an extremely complex management activities. They have regulalry introduced new features and helped us leverage them. Their support team are one of the best I have dealt with, regulalry going above and beyond to ensure the best outcome for our organisation. **What do you dislike about Calico?** We havent had any issues or problems to mention. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** We implemented Calico to improve netwrok segmentation and viaibility in our Kubernetes environment. More recently we have started leveraging container integrity and vulnerability assessment capabailities. ### 27. Harnessing the Power of Calico Cloud: A Comprehensive Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nika G. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 06, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** From the outset, let me emphasize how transformative it has been to integrate Calico Cloud into our tech ecosystem. Calico Cloud has proven to be one of those solutions that revolutionizes the way businesses manage their networking needs and security on Kubernetes. A refreshing embodiment of innovation and performance, Calico Cloud's true worth is found in its multifaceted features that, combined, streamline the complexities of modern networking. The most helpful attribute of Calico Cloud is its capability to provide an enterprise-grade security and networking solution for multi-cluster, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. It’s this ability to adapt to various infrastructure complexities that stands out as one of its key selling points. It simplifies the network policies enforcement, visibility, and troubleshooting, effectively serving as a one-stop solution for all things networking. With Calico Cloud, network policy creation and enforcement become far less daunting tasks. It ensures consistent policy implementation across different clusters, regardless of their location. Therefore, its network policies are not only easier to enforce but also greatly enhance security and compliance. The end result is a heightened security posture and reduced risk - a boon for any organization. The service's distributed architecture is another major upside. By leveraging this approach, Calico Cloud allows us to scale our operations seamlessly and without the accompanying headaches. The scalability and resilience of our systems have significantly improved, thanks to Calico Cloud's impressive networking capabilities. Calico Cloud's multi-tenant, as-a-service model also adds a layer of efficiency that can't be overstated. It provides simplified operational management and complete visibility into our applications' communication patterns, improving our ability to identify and respond to potential threats or performance issues in a timely manner. In conclusion, Calico Cloud is a formidable player in the realm of network management and security. It brings scalability, consistency, and efficiency to the table - qualities that are often elusive in complex Kubernetes environments. Its ability to simplify network policy enforcement, provide detailed visibility, and accommodate multi-cloud environments positions it as a solution that is not only helpful but essential. For anyone looking to upgrade their networking game in today's complex tech world, Calico Cloud is certainly a recommendation that sits at the top of my list. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Despite its advantages, Calico Cloud has a few challenges worth mentioning. Firstly, the steep learning curve might be intimidating for new or less tech-savvy users. Greater simplicity in its onboarding process could help alleviate this issue. Secondly, its configuration process, particularly for complex, multi-cluster environments, can be tedious and time-consuming. More automation and streamlined operations would enhance user experience significantly. Lastly, the platform's as-a-service model, while generally beneficial, may limit customizability for organizations with specific networking needs. Increased flexibility in this area would make Calico Cloud more appealing. In essence, while Calico Cloud has considerable strengths, its learning curve, configuration process, and limited customizability are areas where there is room for improvement. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our journey with Calico Cloud has been transformative. As a tool adept at handling Kubernetes networking complexities, it's helping us solve numerous business challenges, contributing to a more efficient, secure, and scalable operation. One of the significant problems Calico Cloud is helping us tackle is the management of network policies across our multi-cluster, multi-cloud environments. It's enabling consistent policy implementation, irrespective of the location of the clusters. This has reduced the complexity in network management, enhancing our overall security and compliance posture. Moreover, Calico Cloud has drastically improved our scalability. Thanks to its distributed architecture, we can grow our operations smoothly, accommodating increased traffic without compromising system performance. This scalability ensures we meet our customers' demands effectively, enhancing our business's reliability and reputation. Finally, the visibility Calico Cloud offers into our application communication patterns has been instrumental in improving our threat detection and response times. We can now identify potential threats or performance issues faster, allowing us to act swiftly and mitigate any potential damage. This increased visibility and control are invaluable in safeguarding our operations, making us more resilient and secure. In summary, Calico Cloud is assisting us in overcoming a variety of business challenges. By simplifying network management, enabling seamless scalability, and improving our security, it's proving to be an indispensable asset to our operations. ### 28. Awesome product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 16, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** Once you get used to the navigation and layout, you discover the wealth of information at your fingertips. The support and knowladge of the team is unmached and going the extra mile is second nature to them. Once you are setup, upgrades and management is an easy task. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Intitial setup does tend to confuse new users. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** It simplifies securing the of containers and assits in resolving issues. ### 29. Comprehensive cloud security **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Romil K. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 15, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico helps us roll up multiple security features in a single place through a single installer. This makes administration and deployment significantly more straightforward compared to other solutions on the market both in terms of cost and use. Being a kubernetes native tool, it also provides us with peace of mind that we are directly protecting our services rather than building perimeter security. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Calico would really benefit from an uninstaller that does not leave artifacts behind. Also, having native integration with cloud installers such as helm would go a long way. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico provides us with the tools required for us meet our SOC2 compliance requirements for network security. It also helps our Ops team as a great observability platform. ### 30. Calico Cloud: Network Policies, Security, and Support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico Cloud's network policies have enhanced the level of security. We've been able to create and enforce security measures effectively, especially in a shared cluster environment. This also helped us adopt a zero-trust security approach. Calico Cloud Dashboard has given us insights into the network flow and along with the inbuild Kibana dashboard we were able to troubleshoot issues effectively. Furthermore, I must highlight the support engineers for their expertise. Whenever we faced challenges or had questions, the support team was prompt and really helpful. **What do you dislike about Calico?** There was a steep learning curve while onboarding Calico Cloud and understanding all the features, especially security capabilities can feel overwhelming at times. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico Cloud addressed the issue of isolating tenants in shared clusters and implement a zero-trust network model and gain deep visual insight into the network and flow logs. ### 31. Great Product **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 16, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** The instalation and upgrades are no too complicated Staff support is great **What do you dislike about Calico?** Some of the dashboards and functionality are a little complicated until you understand it **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** it resolves security issues and it reports on them, which in turn is a massive help to us.. ### 32. A game-changer for managing network security and policies in Kubernetes clusters **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in International Trade and Development | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** 1. Detailed network policy control 2. Scalability and efficiency 3. Effortless management 4. Prompt support 5. Seamless Integration **What do you dislike about Calico?** Limited support coverage: While Calico Cloud offers self-managed and hosted options, the support coverage is still limited. It would be great if Calico Cloud support extend to Asia timezone. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cybersecurity, Scalability, Performance and Cost. ### 33. Improvement can be done **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2024 **What do you like best about Calico?** The availability and speed of the saas solution **What do you dislike about Calico?** manual created yaml files can not be imported **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cloud calico can handle too many policies which we are having of our kubernetes clusters ### 34. Stellar Performance **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Giorgi K. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 11, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** Network segmentation, scalability and unmatched security, which provides security policies for every workload, ensuring that only authorized traffic flows. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Setting up can be complex, especially for users new to the platform or lack experience with Kubernetes. It also utilizes additional system resources compared to more straightforward network security solutions. In some instances, this increased resource consumption may impact the overall performance **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Segmenting network traffic is crucial for maintaining security and isolating workloads. Calico Enterprise provides advanced network segmentation capabilities, enabling organizations to create microsegments and apply specific policies to each segment. This level of granular control ensures that sensitive workloads remain isolated and protected. ### 35. Well engineered product backed by some awesome folks **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kevin M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 07, 2023 **What do you like best about Calico?** The product is solid and does what it says it does, which is not something you always see. More importantly though, the team backing the product is amazing. **What do you dislike about Calico?** I have not experienced anything while working with calico that I could qualify as a dislike. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is allowing us to provide a multi tenented network. ### 36. Efficient and reliable way to setup app connectivity **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2022 **What do you like best about Calico?** App connectivity is crucial on a Kubernetes-based environment, and Calico does a beautiful job setting up the same. It's relatively easy and dependable when setting up ingress/egress in a hybrid setup **What do you dislike about Calico?** I faced a few errors, like pod readiness errors and ingress-related issues. I had to spend a lot of time understanding the problem and getting to the root cause to fix it. But I guess it this natural for any new product to explore and appreciate if there is a known issue community for Calico to get quick clues in problem fixing. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was on a learning project to set up app connectivity with some basic security controls. Experimenting with Calico was easy, and I could get my PoC running quickly. ### 37. Pay as you go **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Princess M. | Teacher, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2022 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico cloud is a great service for using/paying for only what you use without an upfront investment. The uniqueness of their security configuration is great, too. **What do you dislike about Calico?** I dislike the period of time it takes to learn how to use Calico cloud. As well as hidden features that I didn't use to its capability simply because I didn't know about it. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Calico cloud is helping mitigate cyber attack issues. It is also helping with the pay what you use feature. It's nice to have Jo hidden or additional fees for using services. ### 38. Implement network security using Calico on Kubernetes **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 08, 2022 **What do you like best about Calico?** Very easy to setup Calico on Kubernetes based environment for use cases like implementing ingress/ egress security and building a plug n play networking layer that works reliably **What do you dislike about Calico?** There are lot of manifest files for a given use case. I would rather suggest the Calico community to create simple snippets/demo on the most widely used topics to give a better leverage in setting up a working environment **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was trying to set up a networking layer using Calico for a custom application; my requirements were also to set up the security controls on top of Kubernetes like workload isolation and DMZ layers around the cluster boundary. ### 39. Powerful networking tool for Kubernetes **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 04, 2022 **What do you like best about Calico?** I liked the design of the tool and the way it could be easily configured and deployed in a Kubernetes-based environment. This tool's wide range of applicability makes it very useful across enterprises. **What do you dislike about Calico?** I would like to see more community help for issues faced while using Calico. Appreciate a chat support kind of option where users could get hold of the right tech folk to fix deployment issues. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was trying to integrate legacy and cloud-native workloads to communicate over a single cluster, and that is where I have deployed Calico as a Proof of Concept. ### 40. Simple and scalable networking solution for containers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2017 **What do you like best about Calico?** The best thing about Calico is its simplicity. It works at L3 and has no encapsulation overhead, making it an efficient and a very scalable networking solution for containers. **What do you dislike about Calico?** While we can implement policies for security using Calico but it is not possible to have end-to-end packet encryption. Istio can be a solution for this problem but we haven't yet explored it yet. **Recommendations to others considering Calico:** If you are you going for simplicity and scalability, Calico is your way to go. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our client needed a container networking plugin for their Kubernetes cluster which should be highly scalable, easier to debug and minimum networking overhead. Since Calico perfectly met their requirements, it was very easy to go with Calico. ### 41. PoC with K8S for a new customer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hazzim A. | Software configuration engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2017 **What do you like best about Calico?** Calico was very simple to automate in scripts for deployment of new containers. **What do you dislike about Calico?** Very recent product and needs to be more mature, but actual features are great. **Recommendations to others considering Calico:** Yes, easy to automate and no centralized administration. **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** PoC with Kubernetes for a new customer, very simple to automate. ### 42. Calico review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anirban S. | Lead Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2017 **What do you like best about Calico?** Simplicity and scalability, flexible;e, Simpler and easier to debug ... great with a Layer 3 approach. Other best thing is Policy-driven network security **What do you dislike about Calico?** As the technology is new, needs lot of documentation to start with **What problems is Calico solving and how is that benefiting you?** Helps to scale and secure the networking - [View Calico pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/calico-2025-10-31/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-01+04%3A21%3A32+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=790bb25f-c25c-4777-8479-8674feb8c55a&secure%5Btoken%5D=74e844004dc949094abde2fc0251ec16eaf72a2535590c4e89f61e33fa60a9ce&format=llm_user) ## Calico Integrations - [Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS)](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-elastic-kubernetes-service-amazon-eks/reviews) - [BuKu](https://www.g2.com/products/buku/reviews) ## Calico Features **Management** - Dashboards and Reports - Workflow Management - Administration Console **Administration** - Risk Scoring - Security Auditing - Configuration Management **Security** - Compliance Monitoring - Anomoly Detection - Data Loss Prevention - Cloud Gap Analytics **Configuration** - Configuration Monitoring - Unified Policy Management - Adaptive Access Control - API / Integrations **Security - Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)** - Workload and container security - Threat detection and response - DevSecOps Integrations - Unified Visibility **Cloud Visibility** - Data Discovery - Cloud Registry - Cloud Gap Analytics **Operations** - Governance - Logging and Reporting - API / Integrations **Monitoring** - Continuous Image Assurance - Behavior Monitoring - Observability **Compliance** - Governance - Data Governance - Sensitive Data Compliance **Visibility** - Multicloud Visibility **Artificial Intelligence - Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)** - Intelligent remediations and suggestions - Risk prioritization - Anomaly detection using machine learning **Security** - Data Security - Security Auditing **Security Controls ** - Anomaly Detection - Security Auditing - Cloud Gap Analytics **Protection** - Dynamic Image Scanning - Runtime Protection - Workload Protection - Network Segmentation **Administration** - Policy Enforcement - Auditing - Workflow Management **Vulnerability Management** - Threat Hunting - Vulnerability Scanning - Vulnerability Intelligence - Risk-Prioritization **Cloud Configuration Management - Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)** - Multi-cloud visibility - Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) **Identity** - SSO - Governance - User Analytics **Agentic AI - Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)** - Autonomous Task Execution - Adaptive Learning ## Top Calico Alternatives - [Wiz](https://www.g2.com/products/wiz-wiz/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (814 reviews) - [FortiCNAPP](https://www.g2.com/products/forticnapp/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (383 reviews) - [Scrut Automation](https://www.g2.com/products/scrut-automation/reviews) - 4.9/5.0 (1,310 reviews)