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Cybersecurity · head to head

Diligent vs Envoy

Diligent logo

Diligent

Cybersecurity

Board management and enterprise GRC platform assembled from Galvanize, Steele and Diligent Boards

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit DiligentFull 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; Diligent prices on request.
  • Only Diligent lists Diligent Boards; only Envoy lists xDS dynamic configuration.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Diligent and Envoy actually diverge.

Attributes where Diligent and Envoy differ
AttributeDiligentEnvoy
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelQuoteOpen-source
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWeb
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 Diligent

  • Diligent Boards
  • Entity management
  • Audit and analytics
  • Risk management
  • Third-party risk
  • Ethics and compliance
  • ESG and sustainability
  • Market intelligence

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.

Diligent

  • A listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance systemnot Envoy
  • An internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the ACL heritage analytics enginenot Envoy
  • A regulated firm consolidating a whistleblower hotline, third-party due diligence and policy attestation after an enforcement findingnot Envoy
  • A group needing sustainability disclosure data collected with the same audit trail and controls as financial reportingnot 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 Diligent
  • An edge or API gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxyingnot Diligent
  • Migrating traffic between service versions or between a monolith and its replacement, using weighted splits and shadow trafficnot Diligent
  • 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 Diligent

Where each one falls short

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

Diligent

  • The platform is an assembly of acquisitions, with the analytics engine from ACL, risk from Rsam, ethics and third-party diligence from Steele and the board portal from Diligent itself, so cross-module reporting and consistent user experience should be tested in a proof of concept rather than assumed
  • Pricing is unpublished and consistently at the top of the market, and organisations that need only one capability, a board portal or an audit analytics tool, generally pay less and get more from a specialist
  • Renewal leverage is weak once the board portal is embedded, because directors are the least willing user group to be migrated and that dependency is well understood by the vendor at renewal time
  • The analytics engine expects real data skills, and audit teams without an analytics-capable member typically use a fraction of what they licensed while paying for all of it
  • Module-by-module implementation means the promised single view of governance and risk usually arrives years after the first purchase, if the later modules are ever funded

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

Diligent

On request
  • Diligent One PlatformOn request
    • Quoted by module and user count
    • Board portal seats priced separately from GRC modules
    • Annual subscription, commonly multi-year

Envoy

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Envoy review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Diligent if

  • You need diligent boards.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want entity management.
Diligent 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 Diligent or Envoy better?
Neither clearly leads. Diligent starts at On request and Envoy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Diligent or Envoy?
Envoy has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Diligent and Free for Envoy.
Does Diligent or Envoy run on more platforms?
Diligent runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. Envoy runs on Web.
Can I use Envoy for free?
Yes. Envoy has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Diligent starts at On request.
What is Diligent best used for?
Diligent is most often used for a listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance system, an internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the acl heritage analytics engine, a regulated firm consolidating a whistleblower hotline, third-party due diligence and policy attestation after an enforcement finding, a group needing sustainability disclosure data collected with the same audit trail and controls as financial reporting. Of those, a listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance system and an internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the acl heritage analytics engine are not what Envoy is typically brought in for.
What can Diligent do that Envoy cannot?
Diligent covers Diligent Boards, Entity management, Audit and analytics, Risk management. Envoy covers xDS dynamic configuration, Protocol breadth, Filter chain architecture, Observability by default.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Diligent: Is Diligent One the same product as Galvanize?

It contains it. Diligent bought Galvanize, the ACL and Rsam merger, for around one billion dollars in April 2021, and its audit analytics and risk modules are that heritage rebranded into Diligent One.

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.

Diligent: What does Diligent cost?

Not published. It is quoted by module and user, and board portal seats are priced differently from GRC seats. Expect an annual or multi-year enterprise agreement.

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.

Diligent: Can you buy just the board portal?

Yes, Diligent Boards is sold on its own and is the most common entry point. The GRC modules are separate purchases.

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.

Diligent: Does it replace a SOC 2 automation tool?

No. Diligent is aimed at enterprise audit, risk and governance, not at automated evidence collection for security certifications.

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.

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