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Arbor DDoS vs HAProxy 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Arbor DDoS boosts ROI by preventing costly outages, reducing expenses, and enhancing service provider reputations through effective attack mitigation.
Sentiment score
7.2
HAProxy boosts efficiency by reducing costs and staff needs, offering speed, reliability, and enhanced scalability for traffic management.
Operational efficiency has improved; we no longer have staff consistently monitoring backend servers during deployment or scaling events, as HAProxy's health checks and hitless reloads allow us to push changes with minimal manual intervention.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
This resulted in a drastic decrease in costs and, at the same time, the accuracy of the hits coming on HAProxy was almost around 100% or 99.99%.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
I estimate seeing a return on investment with HAProxy, as it significantly reduced staff requirements and enhanced scaling capabilities, particularly when transitioning from NGINX, which faced issues.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Arbor DDoS support is praised for knowledgeable, responsive service, resolving issues swiftly with high customer satisfaction ratings globally.
Sentiment score
6.3
HAProxy's support is praised for responsiveness and skill, though some suggest improved documentation and communication for better efficiency.
The technical support team is very effective in resolving issues.
Network Engineer at A1 Bulgaria
Although the team is good, they are not fast, and they lack the skills to manage dynamic attackers.
Gerente De Ventas at internet winds ag
Support for Arbor DDoS deserves a rating of 10 because when there is a problem with implementation, the people I work with are the best.
Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo
Since we are utilizing the open-source edition, community forums, mailing lists, and GitHub have been invaluable, with typically someone having encountered the same problems we faced.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
My interactions with HAProxy's customer support were limited, but the feedback from my team indicated satisfactory service.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Arbor DDoS is highly rated for scalability and adaptability, effectively managing DDoS attacks across various deployments and industries.
Sentiment score
7.7
HAProxy is highly scalable, adaptable for small to medium businesses, efficiently handling substantial connections and diverse user volumes.
This would enhance the knowledge about scalability options available for Arbor DDoS, making it more accessible and useful for users.
System Engineer at TIGER LOGIC
They need to purchase boxes monthly to expand their bandwidths, and these new boxes can be added to the installed base very easily.
System Engineer - Security Presales at Raya Integration
I find Arbor DDoS to be very scalable.
Network Engineer at A1 Bulgaria
We manage an automatic load balancing feature where we add HAProxy servers dynamically behind the application load balancer to handle more traffic.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
HAProxy's scalability is excellent; as our traffic expands, it handles load increases effortlessly.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
For scalability, HAProxy meets my needs, supporting our initial horizontal scaling and then adapting to vertical scaling in a VMware environment.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Arbor DDoS is highly reliable and stable, with minor issues, praised for its performance and effectiveness against attacks.
Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy offers high stability and reliable performance, enhancing system uptime with minimal downtime and frequent functionality updates.
It is a very stable product.
Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo
Arbor DDoS is very stable.
System Engineer - Security Presales at Raya Integration
This reliability serves as a key reason for our choice, providing us with confidence even when faced with heavy traffic.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The hot reload feature of HAProxy also really helped us so that we never had to shut it down to reload it.
CEo at CloudPositive
We have reduced a lot of servers, replacing them with one or two HAProxy servers which deliver better performance, accuracy, and an almost 100% success rate with requests.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
 

Room For Improvement

Arbor DDoS needs improved automation, reduced false positives, better interface, integration, scalability, documentation, support, AI, and pricing clarity.
Users recommend improved HAProxy documentation, management tools, dynamic configuration, cloud integration, APIs, and enhanced load-balancing and clustering capabilities.
I would like to see an option to decrypt the traffic with Arbor DDoS, as some clients are interested in this, particularly for application layer attacks on port 443.
Network Engineer at A1 Bulgaria
Enhancing the handshakes between Arbor DDoS and third-party solutions is essential for obtaining better and real-time data that supports any organization’s support team effectively.
System Engineer at TIGER LOGIC
I would like to see a roadmap for one or two years, and it is tough to predict what will happen in that timeframe without a clearer description.
CTO at UkrNet
The configuration syntax is powerful yet can become overwhelming for newcomers; a more beginner-friendly interface or a native GUI without relying on third-party tools would ease the onboarding process.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
An easier desktop interface to connect to a remote server and make changes on my PC would be beneficial.
DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The reloading functionality is effective as it allows soft reloads without interrupting traffic patterns.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Arbor DDoS pricing is high but justified by performance, with flexible licensing and negotiable options for businesses.
Enterprise buyers find HAProxy cost-effective, with free open-source options and a pricier Enterprise Edition offering enhanced features.
The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive.
Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo
For some customers, the cost is expensive, but for enterprises looking to protect their services, it is affordable.
Network Engineer at A1 Bulgaria
Since we use the open-source edition, there are no licensing fees, with the main cost being the infrastructure running on EC2 instances in AWS, which helps maintain low expenses.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Setting up HAProxy didn't cost anything for me.
DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The pricing remains competitive compared to other vendors.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Arbor DDoS delivers comprehensive, AI-enhanced DDoS protection with user-friendly interface, real-time mitigation, flexible deployment, and detailed analytics.
HAProxy offers high performance load balancing with customization, scalability, and support for diverse environments, enhancing user experience and flexibility.
That is an attack over 10 gigabit per second, and if an attack enters the telecommunication network, that will be a disaster for their customer, their services, and so on.
Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo
We have many updates for the library of different attacks, and they have artificial intelligence that automatically learns the process during different attacks.
CTO at UkrNet
You can generate flow spec filters. These filters are transferred through BGP to border routers, which automatically build filters, mitigating the attack even at the network's boundary and preventing it from reaching the TMS.
Director Of Research And Development at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
By moving all SSL termination to the load balancer, I now manage certificates in a single place, and I can also utilize Let's Encrypt with HAProxy's built-in ACME support, making renewal automatic.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
HAProxy positively impacted our organization by exceeding scalability expectations, initially projected at 200k requests but ultimately handling over 15 million transactions per second without any issues.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
As a production engineer at that time, I definitely wanted to ensure that the system could handle massive connections, especially since we operated an e-commerce platform where we could not lose any customer calls.
CEo at CloudPositive
 

Categories and Ranking

Arbor DDoS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HAProxy
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th), Bot Management (6th), Service Mesh (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 6.1%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Arbor DDoS6.1%
HAProxy1.5%
Other92.4%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1331304 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Of Research And Development at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Automated threat intelligence and flow-based mitigation have improved our DDoS defense
A very useful feature in Arbor DDoS is its ability to send flow spec announcements to routers. For example, if it is clear that a Layer 3 or Layer 4 attack is occurring and the attack pattern is identified through source and destination IP addresses and ports, you can generate flow spec filters. These filters are transferred through BGP to border routers, which automatically build filters, mitigating the attack even at the network's boundary and preventing it from reaching the TMS. This allows the TMS to focus on other tasks. This is a highly effective feature that can mitigate huge volumetric attacks; for example, we experienced a 32-gigabit attack, and all those 32 gigabits were dropped by our border routers, not by Arbor DDoS itself. The flow spec announcement was generated by Arbor DDoS, and as far as I know, the same technology is used by Radware, but it comes under a different feature and a different license. At the time, we were told that flow spec mitigation was an additional very expensive license to purchase from Radware, while Radware included everything in one package.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arbor DDoS?
The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based. From our sales department, they discuss that prices are very high.
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Xtel Communications
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Arbor DDoS vs. HAProxy and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.