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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs HAProxy comparison

 

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)
18th
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)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (12th), Bot Management (10th), Service Mesh (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 11.3%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HAProxy11.3%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC0.7%
Other88.0%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RONALDO DE MELO - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks
What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks. The reliability features of HAProxy were particularly useful in a scenario where I needed to test load balancing between two Tomcats. Since these domains were inaccessible, I set up a third Docker with HAProxy, which had access to the Tomcat domains. I then configured HAProxy to handle the load balancing. This setup allowed the client to interact with HAProxy. The solution's integration with other elements is easy.

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."
"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."
"We don't have a problem with the user interface. it's good."
"​​Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"HAProxy potentially has a good return on investment"
"It is scalable."
"It reduced the load on our main load balancers."
"HAProxy Enterprise Edition has been rock solid. We have essentially had no downtime caused by our load balancers in the last 10 months, because they’ve worked so well. Previously, our load balancers caused us multiple hours per year in downtime."
"The anti-DDOS PacketShield filtering solution (embedded in the physical appliances) as well as the BGP route injection are great features and heavily used."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
 

Cons

"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 support from A10 should be improved."
"If nbproc = 2, you will have two processes of HAProxy running. However, the stats of HAProxy will not be aggregated, meaning you don't really know the collective status in a single point of view."
"The web stats UI, which provides the status of the health and numbers, could greatly benefit from having a RESTful interface to control the load-balanced nodes. Although there is a hack around the UI (by issuing a POST request to HAProxy with parameters), a RESTful interface would greatly improve the automation process (through Chef and Ansible)."
"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"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."
"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."
"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."
"​It needs proper HTTP/2 support.​"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is well worth it. HAProxy Enterprise Edition paid for itself within months, simply due to the resiliency it brings. It was a bit more expensive than we were originally interested in paying, but we are thankful we chose to go with HAProxy."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise15
 

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 do you like most about HAProxy?
The solution is effective in managing our traffic.
 

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 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.