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A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs HAProxy vs LoadBalancer Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 LoadBalancer Enterprise is 3.9%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RonaldoDE Melo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Roger Seelaender - PeerSpot reviewer
Great WAF - low-maintenance solution that performs as advertised
The solution can be improved with the development of a SIP engine because it is difficult to manage SBCs. All SBCs are really tough to write rules for. If we could put this in front of an SBC to have the right rules to possibly block the traffic, that would be very helpful. The solution can also improve the relationship between Loadbalancer.org and Metaswitch, or now, Microsoft because Metaswitch was purchased by Microsoft. They both position themselves as certified but don't always talk to each other. I wish there would be closer integration between the solution and the vendors when either release new upgrades to their product line. Often we find issues on either end post upgrades.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A10 explained why the latency dropped significantly on a site that we have."
"For the past two and a half years, we have not had a need to open a tech support ticket. It is really stable. In the past, our experience with tech support was that they were extremely helpful."
"The most valuable features in A10 Networks Thunder ADC are the ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and simplicity to sell to customers."
"It is very useful to have a simple dashboard where you can login and look into what your traffic patterns are, then look and see what times of day you're experiencing the heaviest traffic. You can quickly identify if you are possibly having a security issue or security breach. It makes it very easy to use the box."
"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure and it's very flexible."
"The solution is flexible."
"The solution is stable."
"The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable."
"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
"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."
"Advanced traffic rules, including stick tables and ACLs, which allow me to shape traffic while it's load balanced."
"The solution is user-friendly and efficient."
"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."
"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."
"Stability is number one."
"​​Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"We have about 30,000 connections going through at any one time and it's fine, it doesn't seem to sweat. It doesn't get overloaded."
"Most important for us that it makes sure that the load is distributed and that we always have access to the end servers."
"The most valuable features of Loadbalancer.org are related to its load balancing capabilities."
"We now get notifications when pool members go down, and we eliminate our downtime by not sending traffic to downed pool members.​"
"It's pretty much a Swiss Army knife for managing all the load balancing techniques."
"Load balancing helps us distribute both incoming and outgoing data loads evenly among the servers, preventing overload on a single server."
"With basic network knowledge, our required system functionality can be configured and maintained.​"
"It does what it’s supposed to do which is balancing an important intranet site we are using, so if one server dies, the second becomes active straight away."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."
"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."
"There is two-factor authentication built-in, but it could be more robust."
"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 setup depends on certain situations. In certain scenarios, it may be more complex than others. For example, while the initial configuration may be easy, the environment itself may be complex and that may limit the ease of deployment. It is easy for those who understand their environment."
"The costs can be quite high."
"Traffic flow issues are very difficult, as there's no means for us to analyze the traffic coming in or out of the appliance without technical support."
"Documentation could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."
"While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source."
"The visibility could be improved."
"There is no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."
"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."
"HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"The configuration is somewhat complicated. Someone who does not know the solution may find this challenging."
"Possibly a more graphical overview page (with colors) to give a two second overview to see if everything is working fine."
"​I would like a notification when a new version of the software is available. They told me to sign up for their newsletter, but I have not received any notification for a newer software version.​"
"The configuration is somewhat complicated. Someone who does not know the solution may find this challenging."
"There are many features you can set in the backend of Loadbalancer. They should simplify the configuration. The administrator should be able to configure it more simply. How it is now, you can only configure it if you have a lot of experience."
"Loadbalancer.org's complexity could be reduced."
"I would like it if Loadbalancer had the ability to make rules for specific shared bots."
"Originally we had some stability issues with it, so they replaced it with a new box and it's fine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One of the main reasons for switching away from Cisco was the licensing model. A10 gives you global server load balancing for free, while Cisco charged a significant licensing fee for that."
"There were budgetary constraints that keep us from investing in the single pane of glass traffic management feature. We saw a demo of this feature about a year to a year and a half ago."
"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."
"We previously had F5 and switched because of costs."
"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."
"The solution costs less than its competitors."
"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."
"The pricing is fine, considering the features they are providing. If you are an individual user, they'll price the product differently compared to how they price the product that is sold to an organization."
"It is free of cost."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"The product is open source."
"I love that they do not price on some arbitrary throughput rating where you are guessing at what the load balancer is going to handle."
"The costs associated with Loadbalancer.org depends on the technology. For some, we need to pay, but others are open, so they're free."
"The solution requires an annual support license of $2,780 for four systems or $695 a year per unit for support not including the units."
"It is inexpensive, and even their “unlimited” version, the VA MAX is still far cheaper than competitors."
"I think it’s very affordable."
"It was easy to upgrade the license for unlimited clusters and servers. Pricing is fair."
"It's worth the cost. It's not cheap, but it's a good solution. If you're looking for a good solution, this is a good solution. Is it cheap? No. Is it worth the money? Yes, I think it is."
"We've got an unlimited license, which doesn't costs that much compared to other vendors, and we don't have to buy it again."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
8%
Government
7%
 

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.
Do you recommend Loadbalancer.org?
Since Loadbalancer.org is an open-source solution, I would recommend this solution for smaller businesses that don’t ...
What do you like most about Loadbalancer.org?
Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is sc...
 

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Vodafone, NASA, Mercedes, NBC, Siemens, AT&T, Barclays, Zurich, Penn State University, Fiserv, Canon, Toyota, University of Cambridge, US Army, US Navy, Ocean Spray, ASOS, Pfizer, BBC, Bacardi, Monsoon, River Island, U.S Air Force, King's College London, NHS, Ricoh, Philips, Santander, TATA Communications, Ericcson, Ross Video, Evertz, TalkTalk TV, Giacom, Rapid Host.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: July 2025.
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