1. ECH is still a moving target – deployment is hard
“If the load balancer can force a downgrade …” – j16sdiz
“If your load balanced doesn’t support ECH, don’t tell clients to use ECH.” – gzread
“Nginx also supports ECH now, since the December release.” – arowthway
“Caddy already supports ECH, leaning on the DNS plugins to automate setting the DNS HTTPS records to wire it up.” – francislavoie
2. Downgrade and DNS‑level attacks are still a concern
“The loadbalancer can force a downgrade.” – j16sdiz
“If the load balancer can force a downgrade, an attacker can do it as well.” – micw
“DNSSEC can also protect against malicious SVCB/HTTPS records …” – jeroenhd
“DNSSEC alone is obviously useless because any attacker … can just as easily monitor DNS traffic.” – tptacek
3. ECH is a tool for censorship‑resistance, but not a silver bullet
“A pretty interesting feature of ECH is that the server does not need to validate the public name … so clients can use public_name’s that middleboxes (read: censors) approve to connect to other websites.” – tialaramex
“Domain fronting is why ECH exists.” – tialaramex
“If users don’t trust the Fortigate … you can only block at the IP layer.” – hypeatei
“Governments will request platforms to disable ECH or ask for other signals to be reported.” – sedatk
4. The tooling ecosystem is still catching up
“SSL Labs doesn’t appear to be actively maintained …” – ivanr
“There is a well‑maintained alternative to SSL Labs you can recommend?” – crote
“I use testssl.sh … because I can test things not publicly accessible.” – Bender
“JA4 hashing with ECH is still a work‑in‑progress.” – ArcHound
These four threads—deployment hurdles, downgrade/DNS security, censorship‑resistance, and tooling—capture the bulk of the discussion.