<p>I am unsure what the difference between &quot;plain calico&quot;</p>
<pre><code>kubectl apply -f https://docs.projectcalico.org/manifests/calico.yaml 
</code></pre>
<p>and the &quot;calico tigera&quot; (operator) is.</p>
<pre><code>helm repo add projectcalico https://projectcalico.docs.tigera.io/charts
helm install calico projectcalico/tigera-operator --version v3.24.1\
  --create-namespace -f values.yaml --namespace tigera-operator
</code></pre>
<p>I only really need a CNI, ideally the least contorted.
My impression is that the tigera is somehow a &quot;new extented version&quot; and it makes me
sad to see suddenly a much fuller K8s cluster because of this
(seems hence like mainly the devs of Calico wanted to get funding and needed to blow up
the complexity for fame of their product, but I might be wrong hence the question)</p>
<pre><code>root@cp:~# kubectl  get all -A | grep -e 'NAMESPACE\|calico'
NAMESPACE          NAME                                           READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
calico-apiserver   pod/calico-apiserver-8665d9fcfb-6z7sv          1/1     Running   0          7m30s
calico-apiserver   pod/calico-apiserver-8665d9fcfb-95rlh          1/1     Running   0          7m30s
calico-system      pod/calico-kube-controllers-78687bb75f-ns5nj   1/1     Running   0          8m3s
calico-system      pod/calico-node-2q8h9                          1/1     Running   0          7m43s
calico-system      pod/calico-typha-6d48dfd49d-p5p47              1/1     Running   0          7m47s
calico-system      pod/csi-node-driver-9gjc4                      2/2     Running   0          8m4s
NAMESPACE          NAME                                      TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                  AGE
calico-apiserver   service/calico-api                        ClusterIP   10.105.6.52      &lt;none&gt;        443/TCP                  7m30s
calico-system      service/calico-kube-controllers-metrics   ClusterIP   10.105.39.117    &lt;none&gt;        9094/TCP                 8m3s
calico-system      service/calico-typha                      ClusterIP   10.102.152.6     &lt;none&gt;        5473/TCP                 8m5s
NAMESPACE       NAME                             DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   NODE SELECTOR            AGE
calico-system   daemonset.apps/calico-node       1         1         1       1            1           kubernetes.io/os=linux   8m4s
calico-system   daemonset.apps/csi-node-driver   1         1         1       1            1           kubernetes.io/os=linux   8m4s
NAMESPACE          NAME                                      READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
calico-apiserver   deployment.apps/calico-apiserver          2/2     2            2           7m30s
calico-system      deployment.apps/calico-kube-controllers   1/1     1            1           8m3s
calico-system      deployment.apps/calico-typha              1/1     1            1           8m4s
NAMESPACE          NAME                                                 DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
calico-apiserver   replicaset.apps/calico-apiserver-8665d9fcfb          2         2         2       7m30s
calico-system      replicaset.apps/calico-kube-controllers-78687bb75f   1         1         1       8m3s
calico-system      replicaset.apps/calico-typha-588b4ff644              0         0         0       8m4s
calico-system      replicaset.apps/calico-typha-6d48dfd49d              1         1         1       7m47s
</code></pre>

humanityANDpeace
<p>Tigera is a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP).</p>
<p>For sure, you just want the first copy, Calico CNI.</p>
