Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Akamai Ion 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

Akamai Ion
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
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
Service Mesh (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Akamai Ion is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

HarshBhardiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable bot management with valuable traffic analytics and good delivery configuration
We are using Akamai Ion primarily for CDN services. It is more about delivery configuration, and for security, we use Akamai WAF security controls and Botman Akamai Ion helps protect us from DOS, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and scraping tools. Real-time analytics are very helpful for…
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

"The most valuable feature is bot management."
"Akamai is easy to use and very effective."
"​​Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"Tech support is super-quick to respond, and always on target with answers specific to the current issue."
"Scalable and inexpensive."
"Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source."
"​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."
 

Cons

"Log management should display data for more than two months."
"The product must provide more flexibility."
"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit"
"Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."
"There are three main areas to improve: 1) Make remote management more modern by adding API. 2) Propose a general HA ​solution for HAProxy (no I'm using keepalived for this). 3) Thread option should be a bit more stable."
"Documentation could be improved."
"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."
"The solution can be improved by controlling TCP behavior better and mandating to clients what the expected outcome must be in order to avoid receiving contestant timeout logs."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"The tool is open-source."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"The product is open source."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Ion?
Akamai is easy to use and very effective.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Ion?
The billing cycle is monthly, however, payment is done yearly. While expensive, it provides value for the services offered.
What needs improvement with Akamai Ion?
Log management should display data for more than two months. The traffic report needs to be more flexible. The response time of technical support should be improved.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Eurail, Boston Scientific
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Ion vs. HAProxy and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.