Istio and Lunar.dev are two distinct technologies designed to manage outgoing API traffic, each serving different purposes but capable of complementing each other. Istio is primarily a service mesh technology focused on controlling traffic within Kubernetes environments, managing both ingress and egress traffic between microservices, while Lunar.dev functions as an API Consumption Gateway, specifically designed to shape external traffic to third-party APIs. Unlike Istio, which can add complexity through its configuration of Virtual Services and Destination Rules, Lunar.dev offers a simpler setup process, reducing the risk of misconfiguration. Lunar.dev excels in complex API consumption scenarios, offering features like multiple rate limit enforcement, prioritized queuing, and quota management, which provide deep insights into API usage and costs. It also addresses potential single points of failure by operating as a scalable cluster of API gateways and provides superior observability with detailed metrics on outbound API traffic. Furthermore, Lunar.dev can seamlessly integrate with Istio, allowing organizations to benefit from Istio’s internal traffic management while leveraging Lunar for specialized egress governance, demonstrating that the two technologies can work in tandem rather than in competition.