# WarpDrive Feature Gaps vs Aralez

## Critical Gaps - Production-Level Features

### 1. Authentication & Authorization (0/3 mechanisms)
**Aralez Has:**
- Basic Authentication (HTTP Basic Auth with base64 encoding)
- API Key Authentication (x-api-key header validation)
- JWT Authentication (built-in generation via /jwt endpoint + validation)
  - Supports Bearer token headers
  - Supports URL parameter tokens (araleztoken=TOKEN)
  - Includes master_key-based token generation

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No built-in authentication at all
- ❌ No Basic Auth support
- ❌ No API Key validation
- ❌ No JWT token handling (would require custom WASM plugin)
- **Impact:** Apps requiring authentication must implement their own or use separate auth layer
- **Workaround:** Custom WASM plugins or upstream authentication

---

### 2. Hot-Reload Configuration (Major Gap)
**Aralez Has:**
- Live configuration reloading without restart
- File-watch based updates (upstreams.yaml changes apply immediately)
- Remote config push API (HTTP POST with master_key)
- Zero downtime configuration updates

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No hot reload - requires full restart
- ❌ No file watching for config changes
- ❌ No remote config push API
- **Impact:** Any routing/configuration change requires service restart + downtime
- **Use Case Gap:** Dynamic infrastructure, CI/CD-driven updates, A/B testing
- **Workaround:** Manual restart or container orchestration (Kubernetes rolling updates)

---

### 3. Service Discovery (Major Gap)
**Aralez Has:**
- Consul provider integration (automatic upstream discovery)
- Kubernetes provider integration (automatic service discovery)
- Dynamic upstream updates from external systems

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No Consul integration
- ❌ No Kubernetes service discovery
- ❌ No dynamic provider plugins
- **Impact:** Must manually configure all upstreams; doesn't adapt to infrastructure changes
- **Use Case Gap:** Cloud-native deployments, microservices with dynamic scaling
- **Workaround:** Manage upstreams via configuration management (Terraform, Ansible)

---

### 4. Automatic TLS Detection (Upstream)
**Aralez Has:**
- Automatic detection of upstream TLS requirements
- Self-signed certificate acceptance
- No configuration needed for backend TLS

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ Must explicitly declare protocol.https or protocol.wss
- ❌ No automatic backend TLS detection
- ❌ Requires manual configuration for each backend TLS requirement
- **Impact:** More verbose configuration; easier to misconfigure
- **Workaround:** Explicitly set protocol in config

---

### 5. Sticky Sessions (Session Affinity)
**Aralez Has:**
- Cookie-based sticky session support
- Routes requests from same client to same backend
- Useful for stateful applications

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No sticky session support
- ❌ No session affinity mechanisms
- **Impact:** Stateful applications may fail with round-robin load balancing
- **Workaround:** Use external service mesh or implement in application
- **Use Case Gap:** Legacy stateful apps (sessions, shopping carts, etc.)

---

### 6. Per-Path Rate Limiting
**Aralez Has:**
- Global rate limit (per virtualhost)
- Per-path override capability
- Path-specific rate limits override global limits
- Granular control

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ Only global/per-IP rate limiting
- ❌ No per-path rate limit overrides
- ❌ Cannot set higher limits for less-protected paths
- **Impact:** Can't protect critical paths differently than non-critical ones
- **Workaround:** Custom WASM plugin or upstream rate limiting

---

### 7. Live Process Upgrade (Zero Downtime Deployment)
**Aralez Has:**
- Socket-based graceful process upgrade
- Zero downtime proxy upgrades
- SIGQUIT handling for graceful reload

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No live upgrade mechanism
- ❌ Requires restart to update proxy code
- **Impact:** Proxy updates require brief downtime
- **Workaround:** Container orchestration with health checks and gradual rollout

---

### 8. Multiple Load Balancing Strategies
**Aralez Has:**
- Round-robin
- Failover strategy
- Sticky sessions (related to load balancing)

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Only round-robin (via Pingora's LoadBalancer)
- ❌ No failover strategy selection
- ❌ No weighted load balancing
- ❌ No least-connections strategy
- **Impact:** Limited load balancing flexibility
- **Workaround:** Manage traffic distribution in upstream services

---

### 9. Remote Config Push API
**Aralez Has:**
- HTTP POST endpoint for config updates
- master_key authentication
- Useful for CI/CD integration
- Example: `curl -XPOST --data-binary @upstreams.txt 127.0.0.1:3000/conf?key=${MASTERKEY}`

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No config API endpoint
- ❌ No remote update mechanism
- **Impact:** Must manually restart or use configuration management tools
- **Workaround:** Container orchestration or manual restart

---

## Important Gaps - Enterprise/Operations Features

### 10. TLS Grade Presets
**Aralez Has:**
- Simple TLS grade selection (high/medium/unsafe)
- Automated cipher suite selection
- Qualys SSL Labs A+ compatible (high grade)

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No TLS grade presets
- ❌ Must manually configure TLS settings
- **Impact:** Requires TLS expertise; more error-prone
- **Workaround:** Use separate TLS terminator or manual rustls configuration

---

### 11. Systemd Integration Guide
**Aralez Has:**
- Pre-configured systemd service example
- Built-in ExecReload/ExecUpgrade support
- Ready-to-use deployment template

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No systemd template provided
- **Impact:** More setup work for systemd deployments
- **Workaround:** Create custom systemd service file

---

### 12. Comprehensive Binary Distributions
**Aralez Has:**
- x86_64-musl (static)
- x86_64-glibc (dynamic)
- aarch64-musl (static)
- aarch64-glibc (dynamic)
- Docker image on multiple bases
- Pre-built, tested binaries

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Only cargo install (requires Rust toolchain)
- ⚠️ Must compile from source or use Docker
- **Impact:** More difficult deployment (need build tools)
- **Workaround:** Pre-build and distribute binaries separately

---

## Configuration-Level Gaps

### 13. YAML Configuration Format
**Aralez Has:**
- YAML-based config (main.yaml, upstreams.yaml)
- More human-readable for some users
- Easier host-based routing configuration

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Uses TOML + environment variables
- ❌ No YAML support
- **Impact:** YAML familiarity doesn't transfer
- **Workaround:** Use TOML as-is

---

### 14. Per-Virtualhost Configuration
**Aralez Has:**
- Config organized by virtualhost (domain)
- Natural hierarchical structure for multi-tenant
- Clear per-domain settings

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Organized by upstream/route
- ❌ Doesn't group settings by virtualhost
- **Impact:** Multi-domain setups require more routing logic
- **Workaround:** Use TOML routes with host matching

---

## Performance & Scale Gaps

### 15. Published Performance Benchmarks
**Aralez Has:**
- Published benchmarks: 129,777 req/s (glibc), 123,870 req/s (musl)
- Tested against Nginx/Traefik
- Real-world scenarios documented

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ❌ No published benchmarks
- ❌ Unknown performance characteristics
- **Impact:** Can't compare performance objectively
- **Workaround:** Run custom benchmarks

---

### 16. Memory Efficiency (No Cache Overhead)
**Aralez Has:**
- No in-memory cache layer (simpler, lower memory)
- Lower baseline memory footprint
- Suitable for highly constrained environments

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Includes L1 memory cache (64MB minimum)
- ⚠️ Redis L2 cache optional but adds complexity
- **Impact:** Higher baseline memory usage
- **Note:** This is actually a feature gap on Aralez side (no caching), so not a WarpDrive gap

---

## Health Check Gaps

### 17. Health Check Methods
**Aralez Has:**
- Multiple health check methods (HEAD, GET, POST)
- Configurable intervals
- Explicit health check configuration

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Process manager has health checks for managed processes
- ⚠️ No upstream HTTP health checks for routing decisions
- **Impact:** Can't automatically route around unhealthy backends
- **Workaround:** Rely on circuit breaker + manual intervention

---

## Operational Visibility Gaps

### 18. Built-in Log Aggregation
**Aralez Has:**
- Structured logging with multiple levels
- Log level configuration (info/warn/error/debug/trace/off)

**WarpDrive Missing:**
- ⚠️ Has structured logging (tracing)
- ⚠️ No log aggregation UI
- **Impact:** Must use external log aggregation (ELK, Loki, etc.)
- **Note:** Not a major gap - both require external tools

---

## Summary of Critical Gaps

### Must-Have for Aralez Parity (16 features):
1. ✅ Basic Authentication
2. ✅ API Key Authentication  
3. ✅ JWT Authentication with /jwt endpoint
4. ✅ Hot-reload configuration (file watch + API)
5. ✅ Consul service discovery
6. ✅ Kubernetes service discovery
7. ✅ Automatic upstream TLS detection
8. ✅ Sticky sessions (cookie-based)
9. ✅ Per-path rate limiting
10. ✅ Live process upgrade
11. ✅ Multiple load balancing strategies (failover, weighted)
12. ✅ Remote config push API
13. ✅ TLS grade presets
14. ✅ YAML configuration format
15. ✅ Upstream HTTP health checks
16. ✅ Published performance benchmarks

### Major Architectural Differences:
- **Service Discovery:** Aralez natively integrated; WarpDrive none
- **Authentication:** Aralez built-in; WarpDrive plugin-based
- **Configuration:** Aralez hot-reload; WarpDrive restart-required
- **Load Balancing:** Aralez multiple strategies; WarpDrive round-robin only

### Gap Severity by Category:
| Category | Severity | Impact |
|----------|----------|--------|
| Authentication | **CRITICAL** | Many apps require auth at proxy layer |
| Service Discovery | **CRITICAL** | Cloud-native deployments need dynamic discovery |
| Hot Reload | **HIGH** | DevOps workflows depend on zero-downtime updates |
| Load Balancing | **HIGH** | Different scenarios need different strategies |
| Health Checks | **HIGH** | Routing around failed backends essential |
| Rate Limiting | **MEDIUM** | Per-path rules important for API proxies |
| Sticky Sessions | **MEDIUM** | Legacy apps require session affinity |
| TLS Detection | **MEDIUM** | Nice-to-have but not critical |

