Envoy vs relayd
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Envoy | relayd |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 98 · Excellent | 86 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | ISC |
| Language | C++ | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 28,983 | ★ 3,884 |
| First released | 2016 | 2006 |
| Replaces | Nginx, HAProxy | HAProxy, F5 BIG-IP |
What are Envoy and relayd?
Envoy
Envoy is a high-performance, open-source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications and service meshes. It offers advanced load balancing, observability, and dynamic configuration.
- Service mesh data plane
- Dynamic xDS configuration
- Rich observability
- Advanced load balancing
relayd
relayd is OpenBSD's daemon for relaying and load-balancing TCP connections, supporting application-layer filtering and SSL/TLS acceleration. It integrates closely with the pf packet filter.
- TCP load balancing
- Application-layer filtering
- TLS acceleration
- pf integration
Envoy vs relayd: key differences
Envoy is written in C++, while relayd is built with C. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Envoy versus ISC for relayd. Relayd is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Envoy. Relayd is the more established project (first released 2006), while Envoy arrived in 2016. Envoy has the considerably larger community, at 28,983 GitHub stars versus 3,884. Envoy lists first-class Docker deployment; relayd does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Envoy if…
- Advanced load balancing
- Dynamic configuration API
- Deep observability features
Watch out for
- Steep learning curve
- Verbose YAML configuration
- Heavy for simple setups
Choose relayd if…
- Tightly integrated with OpenBSD
- Very lightweight
Watch out for
- OpenBSD focused
- Terse configuration
Frequently asked questions
Is Envoy or relayd better?
Neither is universally better. Envoy has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Envoy and relayd free and open-source?
Yes. Envoy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and relayd under ISC. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Envoy and relayd with Docker?
Envoy: yes. relayd: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Envoy or relayd?
relayd has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Envoy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.