A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

Read 42 HAProxy reviews

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5,485 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Kemp LoadMaster

Read 49 Kemp LoadMaster reviews

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2,692 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Kemp LoadMaster

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between A10 Networks Thunder ADC, HAProxy, and Kemp LoadMaster based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC).

To learn more, read our detailed Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 4.9%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 11.9%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.3%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

RonaldoDE Melo

Sales Account Executive at L8 Group

Protects connection and servers from direct access with control access feature

The initial setup is very simple. The issue is that it achieves high output across all its features, specifically the output ports. This affects the customer's solution because sometimes, the customer is even aware of the user's activity on certain servers. If you have all the necessary information, we can quickly deploy the solution within two to three days. The size of the Thunder ADC depends on its configuration. For example, the cache converter typically includes more than two rack units, often requiring at least three rack units for adequate space. I rate it a ten out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

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Kaushlendra Singh

Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved

We use the solution for load balancing The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved. I have been using HAProxy for 12 years. We didn’t face any issues with the solution’s stability. I rate the solution’s stability an…

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PeterForster

Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support

My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable."

"The Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) is simple to use."

"We can control access based on the specific application. If other devices are attempting to directly access the servers, you can block them. Additionally, you can balance the load among servers to optimize performance. For example, utilizing caching can make the application run faster."

"Being a public entity and having a public website which is highly visible with a lot of traffic, we are a target for DDoS. Within the last year, we have had a couple of DDoS attacks which could have affected our web traffic and taken down certain parts of our website. This did not happen because the A10 was able to mitigate the attacks using rate limiting that can be configured for DDoS mitigation on the box."

"A10 explained why the latency dropped significantly on a site that we have."

"The SLB and GSLB load balancing are the most valuable features. They meet our need to do server-side load balancing and global site load balancing so we can distribute traffic, not only intra-data center, but inter-data center."

"The ease of use is very good. It's very robust. It just sits and works."

"A lot of our SSL management is done on the front-end side, so there is one pane of glass for a lot of our security certificates. It gives us visibility. It also falls under when certificates are going to expire. Even for servers that are coming down, we can see how that affects the traffic flow by using the services map."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."

"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."

"The solution is user-friendly and efficient."

"It is scalable."

"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."

"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 technical support has been, in one word, perfect. Every time I call, I’m on the phone with a representative within five minutes who is highly skilled and willing to help, whether in the case of critical issues or simple advice."

"The VRRP redundancy is also a mission-critical feature that works seamlessly. I can bring down a server live with minimal downtime because of this."

More HAProxy pros

"The base feature of Kemp LoadMaster load balancing ticks all the boxes but the most valuable features would be the security features Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF)."

"The old process of manually having to redirect Outlook Web Access traffic and Email traffic to a second server is a thing of the past."

"Exchange load balancing and reverse proxy for Skype for Business are key features."

"Simple to install with good documentation."

"LoadMaster is easy to deploy and understand."

"The pricing of the solution is valuable."

"When you configure the listening services, you can implement a lot of security features like the Edge Security Pack that intercepts the requests and processes those before they are sent to the real servers."

"The most valuable feature is the load balancing and allowing for high availability of our web services."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

Cons

"In my opinion, they need to improve their cloud support. There is support for cloud, but not all functions are there, such as high-availability."

"It scaled well for our numbers, up to 3 million subscribers for our most crowded region but I would like to see the same scalability numbers for the virtualized version as well."

"The product is expensive."

"The user interface is what people complain about most of the time, particularly if they don't use it very often. Then they complain that it's a bit clunky."

"The solution does logging, but the logging capacity is really small. Because we have a bunch of traffic here, we usually get a logging-side warning that "This many logs were lost because of the heavy traffic." If the logging was better, that would be very good."

"We are starting to do a lot with containers and how the solution hooks into Kubernetes that we haven't explored. I'm hoping that they have a lot of hooks into Kubernetes. That would be the part for improvement: Marketing use cases with containers."

"There is room for improvement in the upgrading process. Sometimes we have to contact A10 for verification of some stuff."

"When it comes to support, there is always room for improvement. First call resolution is not always there for urgent issues. The first call resolution is something that could be improved upon."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"There is room for improvement in HAProxy's dynamic configuration."

"The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."

"Sometimes it's challenging to get through the log, and you need a log to understand what is going on. It isn't easy to map the logging with the documentation, and every time I read the log, I have to pull out the documentation to understand what I'm reading."

"It needs proper HTTP/2 support."

"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup. The clustering is mainly a configuration replication and is great in a case of active-passive usage. In the case of an active-active (or with more than two nodes) where the configuration is not fully identical, it cannot be used as-is."

"The product does not have any new technologies."

"The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added."

More HAProxy cons

"The only thing I have struggled with is setting up automatic backups."

"The only thing that I miss is that the TMG server was giving me live information about who is connected and what is the request about."

"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."

"The GUI is rather technical and complex, so it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly."

"The configuration of the basic services is pretty straight forward but for more complex solutions, there needs to be better documentation or knowledge base articles."

"There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features."

"It would be very helpful to get all the http/https session logs by default in the log monitor without activating debugging mode like an apache web sever natively does"

"Perhaps Kemp could offer some training videos."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."

"We did try out the solution’s Harmony analytics and visibility controller for its one-year trial. Due to the cost, we chose not to keep it onsite."

"The price of A10 Networks Thunder ADC depends on capacity and the customer's requirement. They have several offerings. They have different price models and options to choose from. Additionally, you need to subscribe to support for the hardware appliances."

"Pricing is one of the features of the product that influence customers to use the product."

"You get a lot more for your dollar with A10."

"As for the initial investment in the hardware, F5 and A10 are quite similar now. For the current A10 solution, the initial cost was about $36,000. As for annual support, the F5 solution would be between $10,000 and $12,000, while the A10 is $2,200 a year for support."

"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."

"The solution costs less than its competitors."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."

"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."

"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."

"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."

"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."

"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible."

"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."

"KEMP gives away free trials for 30 days. This can be stretched if you want. During the test, you will have access to KEMP support."

"The price of the solution is cheap."

"This product has good value and features for the money."

"The price is lower than other options."

"The license varies according to the number of megabits."

"Any decent product will cost money and if you want great support and a great product, then you will want to spend the money on it."

"The pricing is alright and we pay a monthly licensing fee"

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.

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864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

11%

University

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

University

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with signi...

Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very usefu...

What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

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...

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

What do you like most about Kemp LoadMaster?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?

LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.

What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?

There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes...

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Comparisons

Compared 25% of the time

NetScaler vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 23% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 10% of the time

Radware Alteon vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 7% of the time

Array APV Series vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 3% of the time

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Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 13% of the time

NetScaler vs HAProxy

Compared 13% of the time

Istio vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

Envoy vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs HAProxy

Compared 1% of the time

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Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 13% of the time

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 13% of the time

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 10% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 10% of the time

Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 4% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

Product Reports

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Download HAProxy product report

Kemp LoadMaster

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

LoadMaster Load Balancer

Overview

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a dynamic application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC is a value-added solution provided by A10 Networks specializing in robust, trusted, scalable application services for cloud, hybrid, edge cloud, and on-premise environments focused on improving business processes and keeping infrastructures safe. The solution consistently provides server availability, improves content delivery, and protects at-risk applications. A10 Networks Thunder ADC easily controls hybrid and multi-cloud deployments using a Polynimbus strategy to minimize difficulties and costs for IT processes, facilitating overall improved business results.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Service providers and cloud operators are all using A10 Network ADC to manage their large and fast-growing group of business-critical applications.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Benefits

Consistently accessible: A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs numerous load balancing protocols to evenly distribute workloads to all servers and works to ensure constant application functionality. User requests are monitored to ensure loads are directed to the appropriate server so that there is always a proper response delivery to content. This process ensures the applications are consistently available.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): To ensure business processes are fully optimized at all times, A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs a dynamic Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) process to augment server load balancing capabilities throughout global data centers for high availability and improved user experience and application tolerance.
Fast content delivery: A10 Networks Thunder ADC conquers the general WAN latencies, chatty policies, and redundant software programs to ensure quick and responsive service. Employees receive a fast, excellent end-user experience while the organization's business leaders get exceeded SLA mandates and increased productivity with teams working remotely and a step up on the competition.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Features

Detailed Analytics: When deployed with A10 Networks Harmony Controller, Thunder ADC delivers a large selection of detailed aggregate and per-request reports in real time. The reports include popular URLs, error and health indicators, latencies, and end-to-end response times. The data is further dissected to deliver per-app reporting, availability alerts, and performance.
API Coverage: Thunder ADC utilizes A10 Networks REST-based aXAPIs to structure all features with 100 percent API coverage. The resulting interface is then used to seamlessly integrate custom or third-party management solutions, such as VMware or other SDN platforms, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, or other cloud orchestration systems. There are also software plug-ins available for private clouds utilizing VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator.
Comprehensive Management Controls: Thunder ADC is fully supported by A10 Networks Harmony Controller and can be deployed in software or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS). This controller functions as a native management platform that organizes and distributes application-centric service protocols and configuration data to numerous Thunder appliances and device cluster infrastructures throughout numerous multi-cloud environments. Users can instantly identify, audit and track every appliance using critical operational metrics, such as CPU, disk usage, device partitions, and end users. The A10 Networks Harmony Controller will also complete configuration backups and restore operations, and will schedule regular software upgrades.

A10 Networks

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.

HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.

HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.

HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.

HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.

HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support.
- Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
- Advanced DDoS and bot management
- Web application firewall
- Reliable expert support
- High performance modules
- Device detection and geolocation
- Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

“Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features.

Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

Progress Software

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)