Envoy Proxy vs Pomerium

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.

Pomerium is an open-source identity-aware proxy for controlling access to internal applications, servers, services, and workloads without requiring VPN client software. It checks identity, device state, and request context before granting access, and authenticates through identity providers that support OpenID Connect. Listed access scenarios include HTTP, MCP, SSH, gRPC, TCP, and UDP; supported app protocols also include HTTPS, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, and WebSocket. Pomerium removes its authentication cookies before forwarding requests upstream, and sensitive databroker data is encrypted at rest. Downstream TLS has a minimum of TLS 1.2. Deployment options include Linux and macOS binaries, packages, Docker images, source builds, and desktop clients for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The free Personal plan lists 10 users, 10 routes, five policies, and two service accounts. Business costs $7.00 per month, billed annually, and lists limits of 1,000 users, 100 routes, 100 policies, and 20 service accounts. A free trial is also listed.