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Developer Tools · head to head

Envoy vs Reportz

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
Reportz logo

Reportz

Business Intelligence

Per-dashboard marketing reporting at under ten dollars a client

From
$9.9/month
Free plan
No
Visit ReportzFull review

The short version

  • Envoy is free; Reportz starts at $9.9/mo.
  • Only Envoy lists xDS dynamic configuration; only Reportz lists per-dashboard pricing.
  • Where Reportz falls short: there is no data modelling, SQL or warehouse layer, so cross-source analysis is limited to what the widget set already supports.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Envoy and Reportz actually diverge.

Attributes where Envoy and Reportz differ
AttributeEnvoyReportz
Starting priceFree$9.9/month
Pricing modelOpen-sourcePer month by dashboard count
Free tierYesNo
CategoryDeveloper ToolsBusiness Intelligence

Identical on both: 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 Envoy

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

Only in Reportz

  • Per-dashboard pricing
  • Unlimited users
  • Public share links
  • White labelling
  • Template library
  • Scheduled reports
  • Custom KPI widgets
  • Client management

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 Reportz
  • An edge or API gateway that needs per-route retry budgets, circuit breaking and outlier detection rather than round-robin proxyingnot Reportz
  • Migrating traffic between service versions or between a monolith and its replacement, using weighted splits and shadow trafficnot Reportz
  • 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 Reportz

Reportz

  • A five-person SEO agency reporting to twenty five clients that cannot justify several hundred dollars a month for reporting softwarenot Envoy
  • A freelancer who needs one white-labelled dashboard per client and nothing elsenot Envoy
  • An agency giving clients a live link instead of a monthly PDF, without buying client seatsnot Envoy
  • A marketing team wanting a cheap always-on KPI screen fed from ad and analytics platformsnot 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

Reportz

  • The connector library is smaller than the established agency reporting tools, and if a platform you report on is missing there is no practical route to getting it added
  • Four Dots is a small agency-owned business rather than a funded software company, so API breakages and platform changes can take longer to fix than at larger vendors
  • There is no data modelling, SQL or warehouse layer, so cross-source analysis is limited to what the widget set already supports
  • Per-dashboard billing means an agency that builds several views per client loses the headline price advantage quickly
  • Documentation and support are thin compared with larger competitors, and complex setups often need direct email support rather than self-service answers

Pricing, plan by plan

Envoy

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Envoy review.

Reportz

$9.9/month
  • Consultant$9.9/mo
    • Priced per dashboard
    • Unlimited users
    • Unlimited data sources
  • Agency$99/mo
    • Around ten dashboards at the same per-dashboard rate
    • Unlimited users
    • Custom domain
  • Enterprise$742.5/mo
    • 75 dashboards
    • Volume rate
    • Unlimited users

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 Reportz if

  • You need per-dashboard pricing.
  • You also want unlimited users.
Reportz review

Questions people ask

Is Envoy or Reportz better?
Neither clearly leads. Envoy starts at Free and Reportz at $9.9/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Envoy or Reportz?
Envoy has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Envoy and $9.9/month for Reportz.
Does Envoy or Reportz run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Envoy for free?
Yes. Envoy has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Reportz starts at $9.9/month.
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 Reportz is typically brought in for.
What can Envoy do that Reportz cannot?
Envoy covers xDS dynamic configuration, Protocol breadth, Filter chain architecture, Observability by default. Reportz covers Per-dashboard pricing, Unlimited users, Public share links, White labelling.

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.

Reportz: What does Reportz cost?

9.90 US dollars per dashboard per month, with unlimited users and data sources on every tier.

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.

Reportz: Is there a free plan?

No, but there is a fifteen day trial with no card required.

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.

Reportz: Who is behind it?

Four Dots, a digital marketing agency in Belgrade that built the tool for its own client reporting.

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.

Reportz: Can clients view without a login?

Yes, dashboards can be shared as a public link under your own domain.

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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