You don't need Istio if your application is simple. I think Istio makes more sense when your application makes heavy use of peer-to-peer pod connections. If you can get away with a simple queue as a bus, it should remain simple. I think!

> Honestly getting a cluster running is the easiest part. It’s all the add one like istio that make it complicated.

That's like saying running windows is the easy part, it's all the add-ons like Microsoft office that make it complicated.