DigitalOcean Load Balancer vs Envoy: What are the differences?

# Introduction
This comparison aims to outline the key differences between DigitalOcean Load Balancer and Envoy.

1. **Architecture**: DigitalOcean Load Balancer is a managed service offered by DigitalOcean that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers. On the other hand, Envoy is an open-source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications. It operates as a standalone process alongside application code.
   
2. **Features**: DigitalOcean Load Balancer provides basic load balancing functionalities such as distributing traffic, SSL termination, and health checks. In contrast, Envoy offers advanced features like traffic management, observability, security, and resilience. It is highly configurable and provides fine-grained control over traffic routing.

3. **Scalability**: DigitalOcean Load Balancer is limited by the scalability of the underlying infrastructure provided by DigitalOcean. In comparison, Envoy can scale horizontally and vertically based on the requirements of the application. It can handle high volumes of traffic efficiently and effectively.

4. **Integration**: DigitalOcean Load Balancer is tightly integrated with DigitalOcean's infrastructure and services, making it easy to set up and manage within the DigitalOcean ecosystem. On the other hand, Envoy can be integrated with various orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes, Mesos, and Docker, providing flexibility in deployment options.

5. **Community Support**: While DigitalOcean Load Balancer is backed by DigitalOcean's support team, Envoy benefits from a large and active open-source community. This community contributes to ongoing development, optimization, and troubleshooting, ensuring a robust and reliable proxy solution.

6. **Customization**: DigitalOcean Load Balancer offers limited customization options, with predefined configurations for load balancing scenarios. In contrast, Envoy allows extensive customization through its configuration files, enabling developers to tailor the proxy to specific application requirements and environments.

In Summary, DigitalOcean Load Balancer is a managed service with basic load balancing features, tightly integrated with DigitalOcean's platform, while Envoy is an open-source and highly configurable proxy solution designed for cloud-native applications with advanced traffic management capabilities and strong community support.