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Developer Tools · head to head

Envoy vs Qovery

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
Qovery logo

Qovery

Cloud

Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit QoveryFull review

The short version

  • Envoy is free; Qovery prices on request.
  • Only Envoy lists xDS dynamic configuration; only Qovery lists bring your own cloud.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Envoy and Qovery actually diverge.

Attributes where Envoy and Qovery differ
AttributeEnvoyQovery
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen-sourceQuote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, API, Self-hosted
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCloud

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 Envoy

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

Only in Qovery

  • Bring your own cloud
  • Preview environments
  • Cluster lifecycle
  • Terraform provider
  • MCP server
  • Policy as code

What people use each for

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

Envoy

  • Acting as the data plane under a service mesh or Gateway API implementation, which is how the overwhelming majority of deployments use itnot Qovery
  • An edge or API gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxyingnot Qovery
  • Migrating traffic between service versions or between a monolith and its replacement, using weighted splits and shadow trafficnot Qovery
  • 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 Qovery

Qovery

  • A regulated business that must keep application data inside its own AWS account but has nobody to build a deployment platformnot Envoy
  • Giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining Terraform and Helm by handnot Envoy
  • Standardising deployment across AWS and GCP when acquisitions have left the organisation on two cloudsnot Envoy
  • Replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reachnot Envoy

Where each one falls short

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

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

Qovery

  • No plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales
  • The GPL-3.0 engine and console do not constitute a self-hostable product, because the control plane and API are closed and the self-hosted option is gated behind Enterprise, so the open licence gives you no exit if the company changes direction
  • Qovery provisions managed Kubernetes into your account, which means the cloud bill sits on top of the licence and Qovery initiates control plane and ingress controller upgrades on infrastructure your team is accountable for
  • The company repositioned to agentic infrastructure in June 2026 and now ships a deployment platform, a browser development portal and autonomous coding agents concurrently, so a buyer of the deployment product is not at the centre of the roadmap
  • Team and Business are capped at two and three connected clusters with fixed 4 vCPU CI runners and no single sign-on on Team, which pushes teams of moderate size onto quoted Enterprise pricing earlier than the plan names imply

Pricing, plan by plan

Envoy

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Envoy review.

Qovery

On request
  • TeamOn request
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 10 users, up to 100 environments, 2 connected clusters
    • 5,000 deployment minutes and 7 day audit logs
  • BusinessOn request
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 20 users, up to 250 environments, 3 connected clusters
    • 10,000 deployment minutes and 30 day audit logs
  • EnterpriseOn request
    • Custom users, environments and clusters
    • Self-hosted or air-gapped control plane
    • On-premises and bring-your-own-Kubernetes

Which should you pick?

Choose Envoy if

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

Choose Qovery if

  • You need bring your own cloud.
  • You work on Web, API, Self-hosted.
  • You also want preview environments.
Qovery review

Questions people ask

Is Envoy or Qovery better?
Neither clearly leads. Envoy starts at Free and Qovery at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Envoy or Qovery?
Envoy has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Envoy and On request for Qovery.
Does Envoy or Qovery run on more platforms?
Envoy runs on Web. Qovery runs on Web, API, Self-hosted.
Can I use Envoy for free?
Yes. Envoy has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.
What is Envoy best used for?
Envoy is most often used for acting as the data plane under a service mesh or gateway api implementation, which is how the overwhelming majority of deployments use it, an edge or api gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxying, migrating traffic between service versions or between a monolith and its replacement, using weighted splits and shadow traffic, standardising observability across a polyglot estate, so that latency, error rates and tracing look the same regardless of the language a service is written in. Of those, acting as the data plane under a service mesh or gateway api implementation, which is how the overwhelming majority of deployments use it and an edge or api gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxying are not what Qovery is typically brought in for.
What can Envoy do that Qovery cannot?
Envoy covers xDS dynamic configuration, Protocol breadth, Filter chain architecture, Observability by default. Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Qovery: Does Qovery run my applications on its own servers?

No. It provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway account, so compute and data stay with your cloud provider and that bill is entirely separate from the Qovery licence.

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.

Qovery: Can I self-host Qovery?

Only on Enterprise. The deployment engine and console are GPL-3.0, but the control plane is closed source and the self-hosted and air-gapped deployments are commercial Enterprise features.

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.

Qovery: What does it cost?

Qovery does not publish a rate card. Team and Business are billed on usage and quoted through sales, and Enterprise is fully custom. There is a 14 day trial with no card required.

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.

Qovery: What survives if I stop paying?

The Kubernetes cluster and the workloads keep running in your cloud account, but you lose the console, the deployment pipeline, preview environments and every process built on top of them.

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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