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Envoy Proxy Blog
blog.envoyproxy.io · Company blog · on HN since 2017
Written by Envoy proxy maintainers and contributors, covering load balancing, threading, service mesh and security in the Envoy proxy.
What HN saysCommenters call it a great introduction to the problems Envoy solves and cite Matt Klein's posts on data plane versus control plane and load balancing.
25HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
18stories submitted
223story points
1 year agolast shared
2017people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Modern network load balancing and proxying6 people · 184 points · first shared 2017 · 12 comments on HN
- 2Examining Load Balancing Algorithms with Envoy2 people · 10 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 3Envoy proxy and gRPC-web: a fresh new alternative to REST2 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 4Service mesh data plane vs. control plane2 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 5Exploiting an Envoy Heap Vulnerability2 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 6The Envoy Proxy Threading Model2 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 7Automated Internal TLS Everywhere Using SPIRE and Envoy1 people · 7 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 8Embracing eventual consistency in SoA networking1 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 9Envoy Gateway1 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 10Examining Load Balancing Algorithms with Envoy1 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 11Alpha Support for Envoy on Windows (Envoyproxy.io)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 12Envoy Gateway1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13Envoy Gateway: Built in API Gateway in Envoy1 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 14Homepage1 people · first shared 2018
- 15Envoy graduates a6f71879852e1 people · first shared 2018
What HN people wrote when they linked it
trjordan · 2018-01-15
This is a great introduction to a lot of the problems Envoy is trying to solve. If you're interested in learning more, the rest of the Envoy blog [0] is great. Coincidentally, I also spent most of last week putting compiling [1] all the posts we could find on Envoy, smart proxies, and modern load balancing.
[0] https://blog.envoyproxy.io
[1] https://www.turbinelabs.io/resources
dankohn1 · 2019-02-04
It's not ELI5, but the best explanation I've seen comes from Envoy-creator Matt Klein: https://blog.envoyproxy.io/service-mesh-data-plane-vs-control-plane-27…
"Istio is the control plane and Envoy is the data plane"
"Ultimately, the goal of a control plane is to set policy that will eventually be enacted by the data plane."
nyrikki · 2025-07-12
Envoy calls it Layer 4
https://blog.envoyproxy.io/introduction-to-modern-network-load-balanci…
weitendorf · 2024-03-14
https://gnet.host/docs/about/overview/ - This is a very similar threading model to envoy [0] and lmax disruptor [1]. Unfortunately IIUC writing this in Go still prevents the spin-locked acceptor thread from achieving the kind of performance you could get in a non-GC language, unless you chose to disable GC, so I'd guess Envoy is still faster.
https://gnet.host/docs/quickstart/ it's nice that you can use this simply though. Envoy is kind of tricky to setup with custom filters, so most of the time it's just a standalone binary.
[0] https://blog.envoyproxy.io/envoy-threading-model-a8d44b922310
[1] https://lmax-exchange.github.io/disruptor/#_what_is_the_disruptor
caniszczyk · 2018-11-29
Good timing since Envoy just became a graduated project at CNCF.io
https://blog.envoyproxy.io/envoy-graduates-a6f71879852e
thinkmassive · 2018-07-12
Without committing to an entire book, perhaps more detail on load-balancing and proxies?
https://blog.envoyproxy.io/introduction-to-modern-network-load-balanci…
cakoose · 2022-02-20
To clarify, are you saying that:
1. There are already good reverse proxy libraries in C#?
2. There are already good reverse proxy libraries in other languages?
3. There are already good reverse proxy applications?
If it's #1, then yeah, it would be nice if the ReadMe explained why YARP is different. To be fair, they're at least consolidating a bunch of efforts within Microsoft:
> We found a bunch of internal teams at Microsoft who were either building a reverse proxy for their service or had been asking about APIs and tech for building one, so we decided to get them all together to work on a common solution, this project.
If it's #2, then what do C# developers do? Having to build your proxy in another language isn't a deal-breaker, but there are advantages to keeping your project/team/company on a single language.
(And Microsoft does contribute to Envoy [1][2].)
If it's #3, that only works up to a point. My old team used Nginx, which was perfect in the beginning. But over time we needed to customize things in ways that were difficult to do within Nginx's architecture (either in Lua or in C), leading to hackier and hackier solutions. Using a proxy library to build exactly what you need can make things much simpler.
[1] https://blog.envoyproxy.io/general-availability-of-envoy-on-windows-26…
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/05/microsoft-launches-open-service-mesh…