HAProxy Ingress vs Envoy Gateway

HAProxy Ingress8.9Visit Envoy Gateway8.6Visit

Higher score HAProxy Ingress #5 in Kubernetes Ingress Controllers 8.9/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 5 of 5 features Try HAProxy Ingress

vs

Envoy Gateway #8 in Kubernetes Ingress Controllers 8.6/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 5 features Visit Envoy Gateway

• HAProxy Ingress fits best

  Teams needing full-featured Kubernetes ingress

• Envoy Gateway fits best

  Gateway API-first Kubernetes teams

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Side by side

Feature	HAProxy Ingress 8.9/10 Visit ↗	Envoy Gateway 8.6/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.9	8.6
Ranking	#5 in Kubernetes Ingress Controllers	#8 in Kubernetes Ingress Controllers
Best for	Teams needing full-featured Kubernetes ingress	Gateway API-first Kubernetes teams
Pricing model	Free	Free
Starting price	Free plan	Free plan
Free plan	✓	✓
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Support	Community, Docs	Community, Docs
Integrations	6 integrations	2 integrations
Built for	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Mid-market, Enterprise
Features HAProxy Ingress 5/5 · Envoy Gateway 0/5
TLS automation	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Canary routing	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Rate limiting	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Web application firewall	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Auth policies	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Specs
Ingress API model	Both	Not checked yet
Deployment model	Self-hosted	Self-hosted
Our review
Pros	Supports both Kubernetes Ingress resources and Gateway API Automates ACME certificate issuance and renewal Adds canary routing, rate limits, authentication, and WAF integrations	Routes HTTP, gRPC, TLS, TCP, and UDP traffic Supports JWT, API key, Basic Auth, OIDC, and mutual TLS Combines rate limiting, transformations, retries, and traffic splitting
Cons	Self-hosted deployment requires Kubernetes and Linux infrastructure HAProxy-based configuration may be more than simple ingress needs Commercial pricing and managed hosting are not part of the offering	Self-hosted deployment requires teams to manage the environment Its documented ecosystem centers on Kubernetes Gateway API and Envoy Proxy Configuration spans Gateway API resources and Envoy Gateway custom resources
Our verdict	HAProxy Ingress is an open-source Kubernetes ingress controller for routing external HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP traffic to applications running in a cluster. It fits teams that want broad traffic-management capabilities while keeping deployment… Read the review →	Envoy Gateway is an open-source API gateway and reverse-proxy control plane for managing Envoy Proxy in Kubernetes or standalone gateway environments. It is aimed at platform teams and engineers responsible for APIs, ingress traffic,… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• HAProxy Ingress — where it wins

  • Supports both Kubernetes Ingress resources and Gateway API
  • Automates ACME certificate issuance and renewal
  • Adds canary routing, rate limits, authentication, and WAF integrations

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires Kubernetes and Linux infrastructure
  • HAProxy-based configuration may be more than simple ingress needs
  • Commercial pricing and managed hosting are not part of the offering

• Envoy Gateway — where it wins

  • Routes HTTP, gRPC, TLS, TCP, and UDP traffic
  • Supports JWT, API key, Basic Auth, OIDC, and mutual TLS
  • Combines rate limiting, transformations, retries, and traffic splitting

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires teams to manage the environment
  • Its documented ecosystem centers on Kubernetes Gateway API and Envoy Proxy
  • Configuration spans Gateway API resources and Envoy Gateway custom resources

• HAProxy Ingress8.9/10 · Free plan

  A broad, self-hosted ingress option with Ingress and Gateway API support.

  Try HAProxy IngressFull verdict →
• Envoy Gateway8.6/10 · Free plan

  A broad, Gateway API-first control plane for self-hosted Kubernetes traffic management.

  Visit Envoy GatewayFull verdict →