What type of architecture does Envoy primarily support?

Envoy primarily supports microservices architecture, which has become increasingly popular for building distributed systems. In a microservices architecture, applications are broken down into smaller, independent services that can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. Envoy serves as a powerful, high-performance edge and service proxy that facilitates communication between these microservices, managing requests, load balancing, service discovery, and observability seamlessly.

Microservices architecture aligns well with Envoy's capabilities, as it can handle the complexity accompanying the interactions between numerous services. By providing features like advanced routing, service mesh functionality, and dynamic configuration, Envoy ensures reliable service-to-service communication, making it a perfect fit for microservices environments.

Other architectural styles, such as monolithic architecture, layered architecture, or client-server architecture, do not leverage the same level of inter-service communication management and operational flexibility that Envoy is designed to support. In particular, monolithic architectures bundle all functionality into a single, tightly-coupled unit, which contrasts starkly with the decentralized, independent nature of microservices. Thus, choosing microservices as the architecture that Envoy primarily supports accurately reflects its design and intended use cases.