Envoy vs YARP
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 | YARP |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 98 · Excellent | 78 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | C++ | C# |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 28,974 | ★ 9,615 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Nginx, HAProxy | Nginx |
What are Envoy and YARP?
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
YARP
YARP, short for Yet Another Reverse Proxy, is a Microsoft open-source toolkit for building fast, customizable reverse proxy servers using ASP.NET Core. Developers configure it in code or config files.
- Build custom reverse proxies
- ASP.NET Core based
- Dynamic configuration
- Load balancing and health checks
Envoy vs YARP: key differences
Envoy is written in C++, while YARP is built with C#. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Envoy versus MIT for YARP. YARP is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Envoy. Envoy is the more established project (first released 2016), while YARP arrived in 2021. Envoy has the considerably larger community, at 28,974 GitHub stars versus 9,615.
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 YARP if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.6k GitHub stars
- Written in C#
Frequently asked questions
Is Envoy or YARP better?
Neither is universally better. Envoy has the larger community, while YARP is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Envoy and YARP free and open-source?
Yes. Envoy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and YARP under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Envoy and YARP with Docker?
Envoy: yes. YARP: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Envoy or YARP?
YARP has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Envoy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.