# Envoy

**Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/envoy  
**Vertical:** Infrastructure  
**Subcategory:** Cloud Services  
**Tier:** Emerging  
**Website:** envoyproxy.io  
**Last Updated:** 2026-04-14

## Summary

CNCF-graduated cloud-native proxy powering Istio and AWS App Mesh service meshes; 2025 AI Gateway v0.1 enabling AI API traffic management competing with NGINX in Kubernetes.

## Company Overview

Envoy is the most widely deployed cloud-native proxy, originally developed at Lyft and now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) graduated project since November 2018 — serving as the default sidecar proxy in Istio, Open Service Mesh, AWS App Mesh, and other service meshes, as well as the foundational technology behind many commercial API gateways and edge proxy products. Envoy processes traffic for millions of microservices globally, handling load balancing, service discovery, observability, and traffic management at the infrastructure layer.\n\nEnvoy's architecture as a high-performance, extensible proxy has made it the de facto standard for cloud-native network infrastructure — its xDS API for dynamic configuration allows platforms like Istio to manage Envoy configurations at scale without restarting proxies, while its rich observability (distributed tracing, detailed metrics) makes it essential for understanding microservices traffic patterns. Envoy Gateway 1.1 (released August 2024) added support for the Kubernetes Gateway API v1.1, standardizing how Kubernetes workloads expose services externally.\n\nIn February 2025, Envoy reached another milestone: the first stable open-source AI Gateway (v0.1), developed by Bloomberg and Tetrate and backed by CNCF, was built on Envoy to provide unified access management, rate limiting, and observability for AI model APIs — positioning Envoy as infrastructure for AI application traffic alongside traditional microservices traffic. Envoy competes with NGINX and HAProxy for traditional proxy workloads but has largely displaced them in Kubernetes and cloud-native environments. The 2025 strategy focuses on the AI gateway use case, continued Kubernetes Gateway API adoption, and the commercial ecosystem of Envoy-based products (Tetrate, Solo.io, and others) that fund ongoing development.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is Envoy?
Envoy is a CNCF graduated open-source project that serves as a high-performance edge and service proxy. It is the most popular sidecar and ingress provider for service mesh, and is the default sidecar in Istio, Open Service Mesh, and AWS App Mesh.

### What products and services does Envoy offer?
Envoy offers edge and service proxy, service mesh sidecar, load balancer, Envoy Gateway, and an AI Gateway. The AI Gateway v0.1, released in February 2025, is the first stable open-source AI Gateway backed by CNCF.

### Who uses Envoy?
Envoy is widely adopted across industries for edge proxy, service mesh sidecar, and middle-proxy load balancing use cases. It serves as the default sidecar in major service mesh platforms including Istio, Open Service Mesh, and AWS App Mesh.

### When was Envoy founded?
Envoy was founded in 2016 as an open-source project. It achieved CNCF graduated status in November 2018.

### Where is Envoy based?
Envoy is an open-source project under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). It does not have a traditional company headquarters location.

### Is Envoy a Y Combinator company or venture-funded?
Envoy is not a Y Combinator company and is not venture-funded. It operates as an open-source project under the CNCF.

### What are Envoy's key achievements?
Envoy became a CNCF graduated project in November 2018 and is the most popular sidecar and ingress provider for service mesh. It serves as the default sidecar in major platforms like Istio, Open Service Mesh, and AWS App Mesh.

### What technology approach does Envoy use?
Envoy functions as a proxy for edge, service mesh sidecar, and middle-proxy load balancing scenarios. Envoy Gateway 1.1 supports Kubernetes Gateway API v1.1, and integrates with Istio Ambient Mesh.

### How can I get started with Envoy?
Envoy is an open-source CNCF project that can be accessed and implemented directly. It is widely adopted for edge proxy, service mesh, and load balancing implementations across various industries.

### What are Envoy's recent developments?
In August 2024, Envoy released Proxy 1.31.0 and Gateway 1.1 with Kubernetes Gateway API v1.1 support. In February 2025, Envoy launched the first stable open-source AI Gateway v0.1, developed by Bloomberg and Tetrate with CNCF backing.

## Tags

b2b, platform, cloud-native, infrastructure, developer-tools, saas

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*Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*