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Envoy 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Envoy
Ranking in Service Mesh
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HAProxy
Ranking in Service Mesh
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (6th), Bot Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of Envoy is 16.0%, down from 19.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.4%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HAProxy12.4%
Envoy16.0%
Other71.6%
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Full-stack Developer at ImageVision.ai
A simple solution that works as a proxy server and load balancer
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik. The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.  I haven't contacted the tool's support team.  I chose Envoy for the POC…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik."
"We did not need technical support because the documentation is good."
"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
"The solution is effective in managing our traffic."
"We definitely saw fewer employees needed and money saved; we achieved 100% money savings and fewer employees with very little maintenance required."
"The solution is user-friendly, works quickly and efficiently."
"Scalable and inexpensive."
"HAProxy is highly customizable and will meet the business demands of most companies."
"I have found HAProxy very helpful in replicating production environment architecture in a development and testing environment."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples."
"The product does not have any new technologies."
"A significant area for improvement in HAProxy is its tenancy model; managing multiple environments can be challenging, especially with mergers, acquisitions, or domain changes."
"I would like to evaluate load-balancing algorithms other than round robin and SSL offloading."
"We would like to see dynamic ACL and port update support. Our infrastructure relies on randomly allocated ports and this feature would allow us to update without restarting the process."
"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."
"Pricing, monitoring, and reports can be improved."
"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"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."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Envoy?
The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.
What is your primary use case for Envoy?
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer.
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?
HAProxy already provides many of the features that other solutions in the market are providing, such as Nginx, so I do not see much room for improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Booking.com, Cookpad, Digital Ocean, Ebay, F5, Google, GO-JEK, Grubhub, IBM, Medium, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Salesforce.com, Snapchat, Stripe, Square, Tencent, Twilio, Uber, Verizon, VMware, Vsco, Yahoo Japan, Yelp
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Isito, HAProxy, Kong and others in Service Mesh. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.