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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs HAProxy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Lightning ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
19th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HAProxy
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (6th), Bot Management (6th), Service Mesh (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 2.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 8.1%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HAProxy8.1%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC2.0%
Other89.9%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RONALDO DE MELO - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Executive at l8
Efficient application security while optimizing connections
The initial setup is simple; it is not complex. The configuration itself is simple and can be done in a couple of hours. However, the migration of the system to A10 Networks takes longer due to critical applications. Clients prefer to move them one by one, which is why it takes a significant amount of time. The configuration itself is simple, especially for this application.
Shrinivas Devarkonda - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
Handles high traffic efficiently and simplifies complex routing with rule-based logic
I think HAProxy is good as it stands now, but I believe there could be improvements. gRPC has recently been implemented, which is great, along with TLS 1.2 and 1.3 support, and HTTP 2.0 is also available. However, I'm unsure about the benchmark of those HTTP 2.0 requests on HAProxy. If there were any other protocol with better performance than HTTP 2.0, or perhaps mTLS and other similar features, including that in HAProxy would be really great. For improvements, I think that during setup and configuration, the steps provided are neat and clear. Anyone can easily install and configure it. There are many kernel tuning parameters also available, which is great. For specific improvement, in terms of logging, I think printing the full object of the request may help, or if there's a way to reference two requests, it would be beneficial to find a complete session history from a logged-in customer, as it would help analyze customer and user analytics.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Our clients appreciate that this is a security enabled solution."
"Our clients have reported an increase in revenue by around 5% on a year to year basis, since this solution was implemented."
"It allows you to secure the application while balancing the connections for many other customers, reducing CPU usage and server load."
"What I like about Lightning ADC, is that instead of having a big appliance sitting in front of the Kubernetes cluster, Lightning can pretty much go inside of Kubernetes."
"The ability to handle a sequence of front- and back-ends gives the user the opportunity to send traffic through different services."
"HAProxy is highly customizable and will meet the business demands of most companies."
"It is scalable."
"Others should try it out for sure. It’s a great solution backed by a very smart set of technical folks."
"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."
"I have found HAProxy very helpful in replicating production environment architecture in a development and testing environment."
 

Cons

"The support from A10 should be improved."
"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"The documentation is pretty much closed and I think A10 crashes sometimes because initially, I was not able to set up Lightning ADC."
"The configuration should be more friendly, perhaps with a Web interface. For example, I work with the ClusterControl product for Severalnines, and we have a Web interface to deploy the HAProxy load-balancer."
"Documentation could be improved."
"The only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration. A GUI/web interface could be helpful for users who are not as experienced in the Linux shell. However, HAProxy does have another product that we evaluated called ALOHA, which has a web front-end, but we found it did not meet our needs."
"Improving the documentation with multiple examples and scenarios would be beneficial. Most users encounter similar situations, so having a variety of scenarios readily available on the tool's website would be helpful. For instance, if I were part of the HAProxy team, I'd create a webpage with different scenarios and provide files for each scenario. This way, users wouldn't have to start from scratch every time."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."
"HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."
"The solution has bad performance issues."
"I would improve the web-based UI, but it’s a matter of personal preference."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Do you recommend HAProxy?
I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open-source product. HAProxy is also a good choice for someone looking for a stable ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?
Since we used the open-source version, we were not concerned about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with HAProxy?
For the limited use that I have of HAProxy, I don't have any points to improve. I think I need more time with this tool, or perhaps I simply don't have areas that need to get better. I don't have a...
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. HAProxy and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.