--- title: Should We Use LISP? « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev description: A critical analysis of LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol) as a VPN control-plane alternative to BGP. LISP originally aimed to solve locator/identifier... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/should-we-use-lisp-ipspace-net-blog-bjx94pjkp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Should We Use LISP? « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev og:description: A critical analysis of LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol) as a VPN control-plane alternative to BGP. LISP originally aimed to solve locator/identifier... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/should-we-use-lisp-ipspace-net-blog-bjx94pjkp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/BJx94pJkP.png og:image:alt: Should We Use LISP? « ipSpace.net blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Should We Use LISP? « ipSpace.net blog **[ipSpace.net Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A critical analysis of LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol) as a VPN control-plane alternative to BGP. LISP originally aimed to solve locator/identifier separation and scalable IPv6 over IPv4, but pivoted through multiple use cases (IP mobility, multihoming, VM migration, Cisco SD-Access) without gaining broad traction. The modern LISP implementation has abandoned cache-based forwarding in favor of reliable transport with full PubSub and full routing tables per xTR. Comparing LISP and BGP as VPN control planes, both follow the same fundamental architecture of egress edge nodes, a central repository, and ingress edge nodes. LISP claims a performance edge for mobility due to no best-path selection, but lacks selective subscription (equivalent to BGP's RFC 4684 Route Target Constrained Distribution). The author concludes LISP looks like another XKCD standards problem and personally sticks with BGP. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the difference between modern LISP and original cache-based LISP forwarding? Modern LISP has moved away from cache-based forwarding entirely. It now uses reliable transport with full PubSub, and each xTR (tunnel router) maintains a full routing table rather than a cache. This eliminates the classic cache-based forwarding problems that plagued earlier LISP deployments, making it architecturally closer to BGP-based VPN control planes. _Network engineers choosing between LISP and BGP for overlays track these architectural shifts on daily.dev._ ### What BGP feature does LISP still lack compared to BGP EVPN for large-scale VPN deployments? LISP currently lacks selective subscription, the equivalent of BGP's Route Target Constrained Route Distribution (RFC 4684). Without it, every xTR must hold a full routing table, removing the memory-reduction benefit that selective interest in specific destinations would provide. The feature has been identified as a future opportunity but its implementation is lagging. _Engineers sizing overlay deployments around memory and scale find the LISP vs BGP trade-off discussion on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Never-Ending IPv6 Loopback Prefix Saga « ipSpace.net blog](https://daily.dev/posts/the-never-ending-ipv6-loopback-prefix-saga-ipspace-net-blog-4nlhgh10l) · ipSpace.net Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#bgp](https://daily.dev/tags/bgp), [#evpn](https://daily.dev/tags/evpn), [#lisp](https://daily.dev/tags/lisp), [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/should-we-use-lisp-ipspace-net-blog-bjx94pjkp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Should We Use LISP? « ipSpace.net blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/should-we-use-lisp-ipspace-net-blog-bjx94pjkp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/should-we-use-lisp-ipspace-net-blog-bjx94pjkp"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:53:46.802Z","dateModified":"2026-10-15T02:18:58.711Z","description":"A critical analysis of LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol) as a VPN control-plane alternative to BGP. 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