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Explore the real engineering trade‑offs of API Gateways vs Service Meshes for .NET Microservices, with production patterns, performance numbers, and a decision matrix for Azure, Istio, Linkerd and more.

API Gateways vs Service Meshes for .NET Microservices – A Practical Decision Guide

Problem Framing – Why Traffic Management Breaks at Scale in .NET Microservices

In a production .NET microservice landscape, the first thing that breaks is the assumption that a single ingress component can handle both external client traffic and internal service‑to‑service concerns. Teams often start with an API gateway for .NET because it offers a familiar entry point, but as the mesh of services grows, latency spikes, policy drift, and operational toil explode. The core question is: API Gateways vs Service Meshes for .NET Microservices .…