Feature Comparison
How Aralez compares to Nginx, HAProxy, Traefik, Caddy and Envoy
Feature Comparison
| Feature / Proxy | Aralez | Nginx | HAProxy | Traefik | Caddy | Envoy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reload | ✅ Hot | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Hot | ✅ Hot | ✅ Hot |
| Cert load | ✅ Hot | ❌ Reload | ❌ Reload | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ No ? |
| Authentication | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Limited | ⚙️ Limited | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| HTTP2 | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| TLS Grades | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Manual |
| gRPC | ✅ Auto | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual |
| SSL Proxy | ✅ Auto | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| HTTP/2 | ✅ Auto | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| WebSocket | ✅ Auto | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Sticky Session | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ⚙️ Yes | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Limited | ✅ Manual |
| Prometheus | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ External | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Consul | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ⚙️DNS API | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Kubernetes | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Ingress | ⚙️ External | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Limited | ✅ Yes |
| Limiter | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Static Files | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Lua ? | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Health Checks | ✅ Yes | ⚙️ Manual | ⚙️ Manual | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Built With | Rust | C | C | Go | Go | C++ |
✅ Auto – Automatically detected and loaded
✅ Hot – Works immediately, no reload/restart is required
✅ Yes – Works immediately, no setup required
⚙️ Manual – Requires explicit configuration or modules
⚙️ Reload – Reload or restart is required
⚙️ Limited – Support is limited to certain features
⚙️ External – Requires an external module
❌ No – Not supported
Interpretation
Aralez aims to combine the simplicity of NGINX, the observability of Envoy, and the dynamic features of Traefik, all in a modern, lightweight Rust codebase.
Where most proxies require external tooling or complex configuration for dynamic updates, Aralez focuses on automatic behavior by default:
- Upstreams and certificates reload instantly with zero downtime.
- Health checks, TLS termination, and protocol upgrades happen automatically.
- Authentication and metrics are built-in, not bolted on.
- Consul and Kubernetes integration make it mesh-ready without extra agents.
- Written in safe, high-performance Rust, offering reliability and modern concurrency.
In short, Aralez is designed for developers and operators who want a fast, self-contained reverse proxy that “just works,” while still being flexible enough to scale into a service-mesh-like architecture.
Zero-Config Features
Aralez is designed to just work out of the box, minimizing setup and manual configuration. With Aralez, you get:
- Automatic protocol detection: gRPC, HTTP/2, WebSockets, and SSL are proxied correctly without extra config.
- Hot reloads & zero downtime: Upstreams and configuration changes take effect immediately without restarting the server.
- Automatic TLS / certificate updates: Drop new certificates on disk and Aralez picks them up instantly.
- Built-in authentication & rate limiting: Basic auth, API key, JWT, and request limits are ready-to-use.
- Observability & metrics: Prometheus metrics are available automatically.
- Service discovery integration: Works seamlessly with Consul and Kubernetes DNS without extra setup.