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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs HAProxy vs NGINX Plus 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
7.4
Organizations saw mixed financial results with F5 BIG-IP LTM, noting benefits in performance and security but varied financial returns.
Sentiment score
7.8
Companies favor HAProxy for cost-effective traffic management, saving on load balancers, and retaining customers annually with positive ROI.
Sentiment score
7.4
NGINX Plus improved website speed, reduced costs, and enhanced application accessibility, offering varied returns despite higher costs than alternatives.
The major return on investment is the security of our data.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP LTM support is praised for responsiveness, but users report delays with complex issues and inconsistency in non-premium support.
Sentiment score
7.3
HAProxy's customer service has mixed reviews with suggestions for better documentation, though premium support is appreciated but inconsistent.
Sentiment score
6.8
Most users rely on community resources and documentation, but those who use technical support rate it effective despite variable response times.
I would rate the technical support of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) nine out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
F5 BIG-IP LTM efficiently scales for most users, though some face hardware and licensing challenges necessitating careful planning.
Sentiment score
7.8
HAProxy scales efficiently, supporting diverse loads and thousands of users, adaptable for both small and large business needs.
Sentiment score
8.0
NGINX Plus is highly scalable, adaptable to configurations, and efficiently manages load balancing, especially on AWS or GCP.
While some people use NGINX for web servers, my current use case focuses on networking and tunneling, which does not necessitate much scaling.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly reliable with minimal downtime, swiftly resolved issues, and commendable performance in demanding environments.
Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy is highly rated for stability and reliability, though some users occasionally face configuration and compatibility challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
NGINX Plus is stable and reliable with minor concerns, often attributed to configuration, performing well in production environments.
I require ninety-nine point nine percent uptime, and NGINX has been pivotal in helping me achieve this along with our other DNS services.
 

Room For Improvement

F5 BIG-IP LTM is expensive, complex, lacks pay-as-you-grow, with room for improving support, integrations, and user-friendliness.
HAProxy needs better pricing, monitoring, documentation, dashboard functionality, performance stability, and enhanced GUI and TCP session control.
NGINX Plus needs improvements in scalability, ease of use, pricing, performance, security integration, and standalone deployment options.
As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified.
NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates.
 

Setup Cost

F5 BIG-IP LTM is expensive but valued for robust security, performance, with potential savings through strategic bundling and negotiation.
HAProxy is free open-source software offering economic benefits, easy setup, and optional affordable extended features for integrated solutions.
NGINX offers a free version, while NGINX Plus requires a paid license with flexible, feature-based pricing options.
The product is costly.
My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.
The solution offers a cost advantage.
 

Valuable Features

F5 BIG-IP LTM enhances application performance with load balancing, iRules, SSL offloading, and customizable, intuitive interface for complex environments.
HAProxy offers load balancing, security, customization, scalability, open-source benefits, and efficient traffic management with user-friendly setup and cost savings.
NGINX Plus provides efficient load balancing, caching, and security with high performance, modularity, and seamless integration for flexible traffic management.
One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication.
For API management, the WebSocket, and the WebServer, NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.4%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Bonieber  Orofeo - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifying compromised traffic and securing data has been a significant advantage
One of the most beneficial features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) is its ability to identify compromised traffic and its capabilities in authentication. Additionally, the security aspect of it provides a significant advantage as it helps us secure our data, which is a major investment and benefit for us. Before using this system, we had difficulties in storing our data and managing the traffic that comes in and out.
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.
Ritesh-Bakhru - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation
NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
The price needs improvement as it is quite costly.
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
We're using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) ( /products/f5-big-ip-local-traffic-manager-ltm-reviews ) for our a...
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.
Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architectur...
What do you like most about NGINX Plus?
It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?
My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred ...
 

Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, HAProxy and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: April 2025.
850,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.