AWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Envoy Proxy

AWS Elastic Load Balancing9.4Visit Envoy Proxy8.5Visit

Higher score AWS Elastic Load Balancing #1 in Load Balancer Services 9.4/10 Paid ✓ 1 of 3 features Visit AWS ELB

vs

Envoy Proxy #7 in Load Balancer Services 8.5/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 1 of 3 features Visit Envoy

• AWS Elastic Load Balancing fits best

  AWS-native applications needing broad load balancing

• Envoy Proxy fits best

  Engineers needing powerful open-source proxying

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature	AWS Elastic Load Balancing 9.4/10 Visit ↗	Envoy Proxy 8.5/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.4	8.5
Ranking	#1 in Load Balancer Services	#7 in Load Balancer Services
Best for	AWS-native applications needing broad load balancing	Engineers needing powerful open-source proxying
Pricing model	Paid	Free
Starting price	—	Free plan
Free plan	—	✓ (best)
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Self-hosted
Platforms	Web	Windows, macOS, Linux
Support	Docs	Community, Docs
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Mid-market, Enterprise
Features AWS Elastic Load Balancing 1/3 · Envoy Proxy 1/3
TLS termination	✓	✓
Sticky sessions	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
DNS traffic steering	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Balancing layers	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Global regions	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Backend target limit	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Supports Layer 4 and Layer 7 traffic across several load balancer types Routes by host, path, header, method, query string, or source IP Integrates with AWS compute, containers, security, monitoring, and DNS services	Broad HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, gRPC and WebSocket support Advanced load balancing with retries, circuit breaking and health detection Static or dynamic xDS configuration with built-in observability
Cons	Paid tiers add hourly and usage-based charges No fixed standard starting price is stated for paid usage The Free Tier is limited to eligible new AWS customers	Self-managed deployment puts operations and maintenance on your team No vendor-hosted SaaS model or paid service tiers Cache documentation notes the cache filter is work-in-progress in some versions
Our verdict	AWS Elastic Load Balancing is a managed service for distributing incoming application traffic across registered targets in one or more Availability Zones. It is designed for AWS-native web applications, APIs, container workloads, virtual… Read the review →	Envoy Proxy is open-source Layer 7 proxy software for modern service-oriented architectures. It can run as an edge proxy, service-mesh data plane or sidecar alongside application servers. Engineers can use it for HTTP routing and… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• AWS Elastic Load Balancing — where it wins

  • Supports Layer 4 and Layer 7 traffic across several load balancer types
  • Routes by host, path, header, method, query string, or source IP
  • Integrates with AWS compute, containers, security, monitoring, and DNS services

  Where it doesn't

  • Paid tiers add hourly and usage-based charges
  • No fixed standard starting price is stated for paid usage
  • The Free Tier is limited to eligible new AWS customers

• Envoy Proxy — where it wins

  • Broad HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, gRPC and WebSocket support
  • Advanced load balancing with retries, circuit breaking and health detection
  • Static or dynamic xDS configuration with built-in observability

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-managed deployment puts operations and maintenance on your team
  • No vendor-hosted SaaS model or paid service tiers
  • Cache documentation notes the cache filter is work-in-progress in some versions

• AWS Elastic Load Balancing9.4/10 · Paid

  A broad AWS-native load balancing service with usage-based pricing and multiple traffic layers.

  Visit AWS ELBFull verdict →
• Envoy Proxy8.5/10 · Free plan

  A capable self-hosted Layer 7 proxy for teams that want control over traffic management.

  Visit EnvoyFull verdict →