Softwr

Databases · head to head

Cloudinary vs Envoy

Cloudinary logo

Cloudinary

Databases

Image and video API for developers

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit CloudinaryFull review
Envoy logo

Envoy

Developer Tools

A high-performance L7 proxy written in C++ that is configured by an API rather than a config file, and is usually deployed under a control plane.

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Visit EnvoyFull review

The short version

  • Envoy is free; Cloudinary starts at $99/mo.
  • Where Cloudinary falls short: free plan includes only 25 monthly credits and is limited to 3 users and 1 account.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cloudinary and Envoy actually diverge.

Attributes where Cloudinary and Envoy differ
AttributeCloudinaryEnvoy
Pricing modelFreemiumOpen-source
CategoryDatabasesDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), platforms (Web).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Cloudinary

Nothing recorded that Envoy does not also cover.

Only in Envoy

  • xDS dynamic configuration
  • Protocol breadth
  • Filter chain architecture
  • Observability by default
  • Outlier detection
  • Traffic shaping
  • mTLS termination and origination
  • Hot restart

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Cloudinary

  • Automating image transformations and delivery across multiple devicesnot Envoy
  • Generating AI-powered image captions and alternative text at scalenot Envoy
  • Transcoding and optimizing video with automatic subtitle generationnot Envoy
  • Building workflow automation for content teams without codingnot Envoy

Envoy

  • Acting as the data plane under a service mesh or Gateway API implementation, which is how the overwhelming majority of deployments use itnot Cloudinary
  • An edge or API gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxyingnot Cloudinary
  • Migrating traffic between service versions or between a monolith and its replacement, using weighted splits and shadow trafficnot Cloudinary
  • Standardising observability across a polyglot estate, so that latency, error rates and tracing look the same regardless of the language a service is written innot Cloudinary

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Cloudinary

  • Free plan includes only 25 monthly credits and is limited to 3 users and 1 account
  • Enterprise plan pricing is custom; rates not published
  • Monthly billing is more expensive than annual; yearly plan is $89/month for Plus ($224/month for Advanced)

Envoy

  • The configuration surface is very large and hand-written bootstrap YAML runs to hundreds of lines for routing that Nginx expresses in twenty, which is why nearly every production deployment sits under a control plane and inherits that control plane's constraints as well
  • xDS is the real API and it is not stable in the comfortable sense; the v2 API set was removed outright, resource types continue to be deprecated, and your control plane and Envoy binaries have to be upgraded roughly in step or the proxies stop accepting configuration
  • Extending it properly means writing a C++ filter and building and maintaining your own Envoy binary; the alternatives are Lua, which adds per-request overhead, and proxy-wasm, whose ABI has remained effectively experimental for years with a real performance cost
  • At sidecar density the per-proxy memory and CPU footprint is a measurable share of cluster capacity, since thousands of workloads each carry a full proxy, and this is precisely the cost that has pushed mesh projects towards node-level or ambient architectures
  • There is no single vendor selling support for Envoy itself; you get the community plus control-plane vendors such as Solo.io and Tetrate, so an Envoy-level production bug is your own engineers in a C++ codebase unless a support contract happens to cover it
  • Diagnosing why a request got a particular response involves reading config dumps, the stats endpoint and the RESPONSE_FLAGS codes in access logs rather than a readable error, which is a specific skill you must hire or spend months growing

Pricing, plan by plan

Cloudinary

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Upload widget
    • API
    • Search
  • Plus$99/mo
    • All Free features
    • S3 bucket backup
    • Auto-tagging search
  • Advanced$249/mo
    • All Plus features
    • Custom domain (CNAME)
    • Optional HTTPS SSL
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Multi-CDN infrastructure
    • Enterprise SLAs
    • Designated success manager

Envoy

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Envoy review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Cloudinary if

  • You want to start without paying.
Cloudinary review

Choose Envoy if

  • You need xds dynamic configuration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want protocol breadth.
Envoy review

Questions people ask

Is Cloudinary or Envoy better?
Neither clearly leads. Cloudinary starts at Free and Envoy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cloudinary or Envoy?
Cloudinary starts at Free and Envoy at Free.
Does Cloudinary or Envoy run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Cloudinary for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Cloudinary best used for?
Cloudinary is most often used for automating image transformations and delivery across multiple devices, generating ai-powered image captions and alternative text at scale, transcoding and optimizing video with automatic subtitle generation, building workflow automation for content teams without coding. Of those, automating image transformations and delivery across multiple devices and generating ai-powered image captions and alternative text at scale are not what Envoy is typically brought in for.
What can Cloudinary do that Envoy cannot?
Envoy covers xDS dynamic configuration, Protocol breadth, Filter chain architecture, Observability by default.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cloudinary: What are included in Cloudinary's free plan?

Cloudinary's free plan includes upload widget, API access, search, remote fetch, auto-backup, revision tracking, image and video transformations, video transcoding, and CDN delivery. The free plan includes 25 monthly credits, 3 users, and 1 account with community support.

Source
Envoy: Should I run Envoy on its own, or under a control plane?

Almost always under one. Directly authoring xDS or static bootstrap configuration is viable for a handful of routes and becomes unmanageable beyond that. Envoy Gateway, Istio, Contour, Gloo and Consul all exist to generate that configuration for you.

Cloudinary: How does Cloudinary's credit system work?

Cloudinary credits measure usage: one credit equals 1,000 transformations, or 1 GB managed storage, or 1 GB image bandwidth, or 2 GB video bandwidth. The free plan grants 25 credits per month, Plus plan 225 monthly credits, and Advanced plan 600 monthly credits.

Source
Envoy: How does it compare with Nginx or HAProxy?

Envoy is dynamically configured over an API and instrumented far more heavily; Nginx and HAProxy are faster to configure and lighter for straightforward reverse proxying. If you never need to change routing without a reload, Envoy is more machinery than the problem requires.

Cloudinary: What is the difference between Cloudinary Plus and Advanced plans?

Plus plan costs $99/month (or $89/month annually) and includes S3 backup, auto-tagging, and expedited support for up to 3 users across 2 accounts with 225 credits. Advanced is $249/month ($224/month annually), adds custom domain (CNAME) and SSL options for 5 users across 3 accounts with 600 credits.

Source
Envoy: What does it cost?

Nothing to licence; it is Apache 2.0 and there is no paid edition. The cost is engineering time and, for most organisations, a commercial control plane or cloud service that packages it.

Cloudinary: Does Cloudinary offer annual billing discounts?

Yes. Cloudinary's annual billing provides discounts: Plus plan is $89/month when billed yearly (versus $99/month monthly), and Advanced plan is $224/month when billed yearly (versus $249/month monthly).

Source
Envoy: Can I write extensions without C++?

You can write Lua filters or proxy-wasm modules in Rust, Go, C++ or AssemblyScript. Both carry per-request overhead compared with a native filter, and the Wasm path has been slower to stabilise than the project originally projected.

Envoy: Is it a CNCF project?

Yes, it is a graduated CNCF project licensed under Apache 2.0, which means the trademark and governance sit with the foundation rather than with Lyft or any vendor.

Share

Related pages

More on Cloudinary

More on Envoy

Keep looking

Other head to heads