Envoy vs Fabio
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Envoy
Cloud-native high-performance edge and service proxy
VS
Fabio
Zero-config load balancer driven by Consul
| Feature | Envoy | Fabio |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | C++ | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 28,735 | ★ 7,334 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Nginx, HAProxy | HAProxy, Nginx |
Why pick each one
Choose Envoy if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
- Mature project with 28.7k GitHub stars
Choose Fabio if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.3k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Envoy or Fabio better?
Neither is universally better. Envoy has the larger community, while Fabio is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Envoy and Fabio free and open-source?
Yes. Envoy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Fabio under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Envoy and Fabio with Docker?
Envoy: yes. Fabio: yes.