Envoy Proxy vs freenginx
Envoy Proxy
envoyproxy.iofreenginx
freenginx.orgSide by side
| Figure | Envoy Proxy | freenginx |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Reverse Proxy Software | 8.0 (#14) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Architecture | Envoy is a self-contained, out-of-process proxy that can work with applications written in different languages. | It uses one master process and several worker processes, which run under an unprivileged user. |
| Purpose | Envoy is an open-source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native and AI-native applications. | freenginx is an effort to preserve free and open development of nginx, an HTTP and reverse proxy server, mail proxy server, and generic TCP/UDP proxy server. |
Plans
In their own words
Envoy Proxy
Envoy Proxy is a free, open-source proxy for edge traffic and service-to-service communication in cloud-native and AI-native applications. It runs as a self-contained process outside the application and can serve software written in different languages. Envoy handles HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, gRPC, and HTTP/3, with HTTP/3 documented as alpha. Traffic features include routing, retries, circuit breaking, rate limiting, request shadowing, and outlier detection. It exposes subsystem statistics, an administration interface, and distributed tracing through third-party providers. Security features include TLS, JWT, role-based access control, and OAuth-related authorization and authentication. Operators must configure protections such as watermarks, overload management, and circuit breakers for availability resilience. Installation options include Docker images for amd64 and arm64, macOS Homebrew, and static binaries. Its API is compatible with Envoy Gateway and Istio.
freenginx
freenginx is an effort to preserve free and open development of server software used for HTTP, mail, and TCP/UDP proxying. Its HTTP server can serve static files, reverse proxy with caching, balance load, and provide fault tolerance. It supports SSL/TLS SNI, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3, along with access controls based on client IP address, HTTP Basic authentication, or a subrequest result. Cached and accelerated connections are available for FastCGI, uwsgi, SCGI, and memcached servers. The mail proxy supports IMAP, POP3, and SMTP authentication methods with SSL and STARTTLS/STLS. TCP and UDP proxying includes load balancing, fault tolerance, and client-address access control. The process design uses one master and several workers running under an unprivileged user. Configuration can be reloaded and the executable upgraded without interrupting client service. Source and documentation are distributed under a 2-clause BSD-like license. The software is self-hosted and uses file-based configuration; downloads include source, Windows builds, and mainline and stable versions.