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Developer Tools · head to head

Envoy vs Zenlytic

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
Zenlytic logo

Zenlytic

Business Intelligence

Conversational analytics on a governed semantic layer that shows you the SQL it ran

From
On request
Free plan
No
Visit ZenlyticFull review

The short version

  • Envoy is free; Zenlytic prices on request.
  • Only Envoy lists xDS dynamic configuration; only Zenlytic lists zoe conversational agent.
  • Where Zenlytic falls short: pricing is not published and is negotiated per deal, so small buyers have no benchmark and no leverage.
  • Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Envoy and Zenlytic actually diverge.

Attributes where Envoy and Zenlytic differ
AttributeEnvoyZenlytic
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen-sourceQuote
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 Zenlytic

  • Zoe conversational agent
  • YAML semantic layer
  • LookML import
  • Row and column permissions
  • Dashboards
  • dbt integration
  • Embedded analytics
  • Query transparency

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

Zenlytic

  • A data team of three fielding sixty ad hoc requests a week from operators who could answer them in chat insteadnot Envoy
  • An ecommerce company where merchandisers need cohort and margin questions answered without waiting for an analystnot Envoy
  • A Looker customer looking for an exit that can import existing LookML rather than remodel from scratchnot Envoy
  • A finance team that needs every AI-generated number to show its SQL before it goes in a board packnot 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

Zenlytic

  • Answer quality is bounded by the semantic model, so a team without a maintained dbt project and metric definitions must complete a modelling project before the AI is useful at all
  • It is a small venture-funded company in a category that Snowflake, Databricks and Microsoft are all building into natively, which is a real procurement risk on a multi-year contract
  • Pricing is not published and is negotiated per deal, so small buyers have no benchmark and no leverage
  • The visualisation and dashboard layer is thinner than established BI tools, so teams wanting pixel control over reporting will find it limiting
  • It assumes a cloud data warehouse; organisations with data spread across operational databases and spreadsheets have to consolidate first, which is the expensive part of the project

Pricing, plan by plan

Envoy

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Envoy review.

Zenlytic

On request
  • ZenlyticOn request
    • Annual contract quoted by seats and deployment
    • Semantic layer, dashboards and Zoe included
    • Embedded analytics licensed separately

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 Zenlytic if

  • You need zoe conversational agent.
  • You also want yaml semantic layer.
Zenlytic review

Questions people ask

Is Envoy or Zenlytic better?
Neither clearly leads. Envoy starts at Free and Zenlytic at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Envoy or Zenlytic?
Envoy has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Envoy and On request for Zenlytic.
Does Envoy or Zenlytic 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. Zenlytic 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 Zenlytic is typically brought in for.
What can Envoy do that Zenlytic cannot?
Envoy covers xDS dynamic configuration, Protocol breadth, Filter chain architecture, Observability by default. Zenlytic covers Zoe conversational agent, YAML semantic layer, LookML import, Row and column permissions.

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.

Zenlytic: Does Zenlytic publish pricing?

No. Contracts are quoted annually based on seats and deployment scope.

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.

Zenlytic: Can it read my Looker model?

Yes, it imports LookML, which is the main reason Looker customers evaluate it.

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.

Zenlytic: Does it write arbitrary SQL against my warehouse?

No. Queries are constrained to the semantic layer, and the generated SQL is shown with every answer.

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.

Zenlytic: Do I need dbt?

Not strictly, but the product is designed around a modelled warehouse and works poorly without one.

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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