The State of Calico Open

Source: Usage & Adoption

August 2023
 INTRODUCTION
In our 2023 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption report, we look at how Calico is being used, in which
environments, and why. What was the primary reason users chose Calico? Are they using it for networking, security or
some combination of the two? What types of network and security policies are users deploying with Calico? We break
down the answers to these questions and more.

This report compiles survey results from more than 1,200 Calico Open Source users from around the world, who are
actively using Calico in their container and Kubernetes environments. It sheds light on how they are using Calico across
various environments, while also highlighting different aspects of Calico’s adoption in terms of platforms, data planes,
and policies.

We are pleased to see the data show that Calico continues to be a pivotal part of the container and Kubernetes
ecosystem, finding large-scale adoption across major Kubernetes platforms. Users are leveraging the data plane
flexibility offered by Calico for eBPF, VPP, standard Linux and Windows-based networking. They find value in Calico’s
robust capabilities, and more than 80% of users would recommend the solution to colleagues and friends. We hope
you’ll come away with an understanding of how widely adopted Calico Open Source is, as well as a sense of Project
Calico’s vibrant and active community.

*Note that many survey questions allowed multiple answer selections; therefore, you’ll notice that many of the graphs
show percentage numbers that tally to more than 100%

02 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 ABOUT CALICO
Project Calico
Project Calico is an open-source project with an active development and user community. Calico Open Source was
born out of this project and has grown to be the most widely adopted solution for container networking and security,
powering 8M+ nodes daily across 166 countries.

Calico Open Source

Calico Open Source is a networking and security solution for containers, virtual machines, and native host-based
workloads. Calico supports a broad range of platforms including Kubernetes, RedHat OpenShift, Suse/Rancher, Docker
EE, OpenStack, bare metal services as well as managed Kubernetes services such as EKS, AKS, GKE and IKS.

Whether you opt to use Calico’s eBPF data plane, Linux’s standard networking pipeline, the Windows data plane or
experiment with VPP data plane, Calico delivers blazing-fast performance with true cloud-native scalability. Calico
provides developers and cluster operators with a consistent experience and set of capabilities whether running in
public cloud or on-premises, or on a single node or across a multi-thousand node cluster.

03 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

04 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023
 Calico Capabilities

The following diagram provides a brief overview of Calico’s key capabilities. Calico’s massive adoption can be
attributed to its flexible architecture with choice of data planes, ease of use, robustness, scale and performance.

05 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 Connect with us online

Check out our extensive documentation, educational materials and community forums.

Documentation Training Blog

Twitter Slack GitHub Discourse

06 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 CALICO BY THE NUMBERS

8,000,000+ 1,000,000+ 1,400,000,000+ 50,000+

Nodes Clusters Docker Pulls Enterprises

>50% 166 9,300+ 300+

of Fortune 100 Countries Slack channel members Contributors

07 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 Trusted by global enterprises & startups

Explore Calico

Get Started GitHub

08 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 KEY FINDINGS
The top 3 Calico capabilities driving user adoption are its scalable networking,
security policies and interoperability across different environments
Calico Open Source is mainly used for Kubernetes networking and security
• 63% are using Calico as a security policy engine on top of an existing CNI (e.g. AWS VPC, Microsoft AKS CNI, GKE v1)
• 58% of users have Calico deployed in a container environment

Most Calico clusters are deployed across cloud environments

• 59% of Calico users are using multiple clusters
• 50% of users have clusters deployed in a hybrid cloud environment
• 56% of Calico users have an average cluster size of between 10–100 nodes
• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is the most-used Kubernetes platform or service among Calico users

Calico policy creation and deployment is driven by the need for workload access control and secure egress access
• 85% of users need to achieve network segmentation and protect east-west traffic

Calico users are using a combination of data planes including eBPF, standard Linux and Windows
• 16% of respondents use Calico’s newer eBPF data plane
• Linux IPtables and Windows HNS continue to be the most used data planes with Calico

09 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 SURVEY RESULTS

HOW IS CALICO BEING USED?

The majority of users use Calico as a security policy engine on top of
an existing CNI
2 in 3 (63%) Calico users use the solution for container network security
Calico can be used in multiple ways: as a standalone CNI, as a policy engine on top of an existing CNI, such as AWS,
VPC CNI, Azure CNI, or Azure VPC Overlay, or as a Calico CNI alongside Calico policy engine.

When asked how they use Calico, most respondents (63%) said they use the solution as a container network security
technology (policy engine). The second most popular use case for Calico is as a CNI for container networking (31%),
while almost a quarter of Calico users use the solution for both container networking and security (23%).

How are you using Calico?

As a container networking technology (CNI) 31%

As a container network security technology (policy engine) 63%

As a container networking and security technology 28%

None of the above 1%

10 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 CLUSTERS & ENVIRONMENTS
Calico is mostly used in container environments
58% of Calico users have the solution deployed in a container environment
Organizations often use multiple computing environments, including bare metal, hosts and containers. Given the
popularity of containers, it’s not surprising that our survey shows that the largest percentage of users (58%) use Calico
in a containerized environment. A third of respondents indicated that the environment in which they use Calico
consists of bare metal, hosts, and VMs.

Enterprises rely on Calico’s networking and security for their heterogeneous environments

Describe the computing environment in which

you are using Calico.

Bare metal, hosts and VMs 33%

Containers 58%

11 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 Calico is mostly deployed in multi-cluster, hybrid-cloud environments
where the average cluster size is 10-100 nodes
Users take advantage of Calico’s scalability, using it across small (10 nodes) to extremely
large (1,000+ nodes) clusters
Our survey found that 59% of Calico users are using multiple clusters, while 41% use a single cluster. The most common
average cluster size is between 10–100 nodes (56%), with the second most common being in the range of 100–1,000
nodes (33%).

Are you using a single cluster or What is your average cluster size?
multiple clusters?
> 1,000 nodes - 3% < 10 nodes - 8%

100-1,000
Single nodes
41% 33%
Multiple
59%
10-100 nodes
56%

12 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 Most Calico clusters are deployed across cloud environments, with half deployed in a hybrid cloud environment, while
21% of clusters are deployed on-premises.

Where are your clusters deployed?

On-prem 21%

Cloud 41%

Hybrid cloud 50%

Multi cloud 17%

None of the above 1%

13 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 PLATFORMS & POLICIES
The top three Kubernetes platforms and services used by Calico users
are Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Google Kubernetes
Engine (GKE), and Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) were the second and third most
popular, followed by VMware Tanzu and SUSE Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE). Survey respondents indicated they
also use IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS) (13%) and Red Hat OpenShift (5%).

Which Kubernetes platform or service are you using?

Red Hat OpenShift 5%

SUSE Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) 19%

VMware Tanzu 19%

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) 38%

Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) 32%

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) 34%

IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS) 13%

None of the above 2%

Other 1%

14 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 Workload access and secure egress access are the top two use cases
driving Calico policy creation and deployment
Workload access policies are the most popular type of security policy Calico users deploy,
followed by policies for secure egress access

85% of users said they needed to achieve network segmentation and protect east-west traffic

A robust security posture includes scanning images before they get deployed, isolating workloads with
microsegmentation, and securing access to workloads using zero-trust principles. Given that a robust security
posture is the first step in securing containerized workloads, we weren’t surprised to see that Calico users are using
policies in this way.

What are you using policies for?

Microsegmentation 24%

Workload access 61%

Secure egress access 41%

Compliance 8%

15 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 DATA PLANES
Most Calico users use a combination of data planes with Calico
Calico’s newer eBPF data plane is used by 16% of respondents, while Linux IPtables and
Windows HNS continue to be the most used
Almost half of the survey respondents report using Linux IPtables and/or Windows HNS (49% and 46%, respectively),
while 16% use eBPF. In the future, 1 out of 5 respondents (20%) plan to use eBPF, whereas the use of Linux IPtables and/or
Windows HNS is expected to decline slightly.

These numbers underscore the importance of giving users choices when it comes to data planes. That’s why Calico
offers support for several data planes, including Linux IPtables, Windows HNS, VPP, and eBPF, allowing users to easily
load and unload data planes to suit their needs. Calico let’s users decide what works best for what they want to do.

Which data plane are you using with Calico? In future, which data planes do you plan to use?

eBPF 16% eBPF 20%

Linux IPtables 49% Linux IPtables 46%

Windows HNS 46% Windows HNS 45%

VPP 12% VPP 16%

Multiple data planes 8% Multiple data planes 10%

Read our blog post: eBPF: When (and when not) to use it

16 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 WHY CALICO?
Scalable networking, security policies and interoperability across
different environments are the top 3 reasons users chose Calico
Scalable networking (35%) and security policies (35%) are the two main reasons users chose Calico, followed closely
by its interoperability across different environments (33%) and its encryption capabilities (30%). Calico’s performance
(25%) and ease of use (26%) were also important deciding factors, each being named by a quarter of respondents as
the primary reason they chose Calico. Respondents named the solution’s robustness, choice of data planes, in-depth
documentation, and strong community support as other important reasons why they chose Calico.

What was the primary reason you chose Calico?

Choice of data planes 13%

Performance 25%

Interoperability across different environments 33%

Scalable networking 35%

Encryption 30%

Security policies 35%

Ease of use 26%

Robustness 14%

In-depth documentation 8%

Strong community support 6%

All of the above 3%

17 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 The majority (87%) of survey respondents are happy with Calico, with
more than half saying they are likely to recommend it to a friend or
colleague
We weren’t surprised to see that most respondents are happy with Calico, but we
do love to see it supported by the data! More than a quarter of respondents are
so happy with the platform that they indicated they would very likely recommend
Calico to a colleague or friend. The Project Calico community is currently 9,000+
strong, and we’re always happy to have that grow. Our community is the heart
and soul of the project!

Project Calico is first and foremost a community. The invention and continuous
development of Calico Open Source would not be possible without the help of Slack GitHub
the project’s 300+ (and counting) contributors around the world, ranging from
private citizens to big tech companies. It’s the breadth of this community that Join the community
has helped make the project, and Calico Open Source, what it is today!

How likely are you to recommend Calico to a colleague or friend?

Very unlikely 4%

Unlikely 10%

Neutral (neither likely nor unlikely) 27%

Somewhat likely 34%

Very likely 26%

Other 0%

18 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 ABOUT OUR RESPONDENTS
We surveyed 1,269 Calico Open Source users in a variety of roles, industries, and regions. All respondents are members
of the Project Calico community who actively use Calico Open Source.

While our sample leans heavily toward the software technology industry (13%), all major sectors are represented,
including healthcare (7%), government (6%), insurance (6%), and financial services (5%). The majority of respondents
live in the United States or Canada, and listed DevOps, architecture, or IT operation and infrastructure as their primary
responsibility at work. In all, respondents represented 20 industries from 5 continents.

Where do you live?

United States or Canada 78%

U.K. 4%

Middle East or Africa 6% Which of the following best describes your primary responsibility?

Australia or New Zealand 4%

Security 9%

Europe (non-U.K. country) 6% IT Operations and

19%
Infrastructure
Asia 1.5%
DevOps 24%
Mexico, Central America,
0.5%
or South America Architecture 20%

Development 14%

Data 9%

Multiple functions with

5%
no primary role

Other 0%

19 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 What is your organization’s main vertical industry?

Education 3%

Energy and Utilities 4%

Financial Services 5%

Food and Beverage 8%

Government 6%

Healthcare 7%

Hospitality and Entertainment 7%

Insurance 6%

Life Sciences 6%

Manufacturing 7%

Media and Advertising 6%

Non-Profit 4%

Pharmaceutical 3%

Retail 3%

Services 4%

Technology (software) 13%

Technology (not software) 4%

Telecommunications 2% Learn More

Transportation 1%

Other 0%

20 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 The majority (65%) of organizations using Calico have more than 1,000
employees
Of those organizations, 30% have more than 5,000 employees

Calico is ubiquitous and is used by both large and small organizations

Approximately, how many people

does your company employ?
> 10,000 - 2%

5,000-10,000
17%
10-1,000
35%

Learn More
1,000-5,000
46%

21 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 SPOTLIGHT: EBPF
16% of Calico users are using the Calico eBPF data plane
Calico offers an eBPF data plane as an alternative to our standard Linux data plane (which is iptables based). While the
standard data plane focuses on compatibility by working together with kube-proxy and your own iptables rules, the eBPF data
plane focuses on performance, latency, and improving user experience with features that aren’t possible with the standard
data plane.

The Calico eBPF data plane offers three key benefits across all supported environments:
• Improved overall performance
• Higher throughput and better resource utilization (less CPU per Gigabit of throughput)
• Native Kubernetes service handling by replacing kube-proxy
• Source IP preservation, Direct Server Return (DSR) and better traffic control
• Efficient network policy enforcement via eBPF programs

But Calico doesn’t only support standard Linux and eBPF; it currently supports a total of four data planes, including the VPP data
plane with a unique characteristic for network-intensive workloads that allows developers to manipulate the traffic from the
userspace, and one for Windows that is based on Windows HNS. Calico enables you, the user, to decide what works best for
what you want to do.

When choosing a data plane, you need to determine which will best meet your requirements. Are you looking for efficiency?
Compatibility? Perhaps performance is most important to you. Take a look at this comparison chart to see what standard Linux
and eBPF data planes offer.

Learn More
16 % of Calico users are currently using an eBPF data plane with Calico,
while 20 % plan to use it in the future.

22 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 CALICO PRODUCT EDITIONS
Your Calico journey doesn’t need to end here! For advanced functionality, see what’s available with Calico Cloud and
Calico Enterprise, both of which build on Calico Open Source’s foundation for zero trust to provide active security and
observability capabilities.

Calico Open Source Calico Cloud Calico Enterprise

eBPF-based networking and Pay-as-you-go SaaS platform Self-managed platform for
security for container security Kubernetes security

Compare product editions with our product comparison table

See product features

23 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023

 ABOUT TIGERA
Tigera provides active, zero-trust based security for cloud-native applications running on containers and Kubernetes.
Our active security platform prevents, detects, troubleshoots, and automatically mitigates exposure risks of security
breaches.

Ready to see Calico Cloud in action?

Try Calico’s active, zero-trust based security for containers
and Kubernetes with a free trial.

Try Now

24 The State of Calico Open Source: Usage & Adoption 2023