Kubernetes Proxy: Envoy vs NGINX vs HA Proxy


Having spent quite some time with Linux and Kubernetes admins, I've come to realize that networking isn't one of their strong sides. Being a network guy myself, I feel obliged to share my views on topics as important as this one. So, which proxy should you use in your Kubernetes cluster?

Lets start with some facts:
  • All three of these proxies are highly reliable, L7, proven proxies, with Envoy being the newest kid on the block.
  • All these proxies do an outstanding job of routing traffic L7 reliably and efficiently, with a minimum of fuss.
  • There is no full parity of features, but you can implement any critical missing features in the proxy itself… the power of open source!





To keep the post structure, just a few lines about each of these 3 Proxies:
  • HA Proxy is the default Load Balancer when it comes to Kubernetes. It was initially released in 2006, when the Internet operated very differently than today, ergo… there's an issue of slow adoption of new features. This is very serious when you consider SECURITY, like support for last SSL/TLS versions.
  • NGINX is a high-performance web server, FASTER and more modern then HA Proxy Load Balancer, WAF and so many other things… and if you check out the SDN integrations (Cisco ACI, VMware NSX, Nokia Nuage), these are all based on open source version of NGINX. NGINX open source has a number of limitations, including limited observability and health checks, so it comes down to what you're looking for. If you want an enterprise product, depending on your company environment - go with NGINX Plus, ACI or NSX (be sure to ask for -T).
  • Envoy Proxy is new… so not very mature, BUT - most modern, and used in production in Apple, Google among others. Envoy was designed from the ground up for microservices, with features such as hitless reloads, resilience, and advanced load balancing, plus - and exposing dynamic APIs for configuration. THIS is a big deal, in the world where proxies have been configured using static configuration files (Envoy also supports static config, of course). And lets not forget that Istio Service Mesh, which I'm a big fan and contributor of, uses an extended version of the Envoy proxy.

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