F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs HAProxy comparison

F5 and HAProxy are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. F5 is ranked #19 with an average rating of 10.0, while HAProxy is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.2. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of HAProxy users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between F5 Distributed Cloud Services and HAProxy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. HAProxy Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. HAProxy

December 2025

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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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Filip Mikulik

IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.

Protects web applications with comprehensive security features

All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

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Shrinivas Devarkonda

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."

"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

More Cloudflare pros

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

"Stability is number one."

"It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."

"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."

"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."

"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."

"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."

"We use the solution for load balancing."

"We were able to use HAProxy for round robin with our databases, or for a centralized TCP connection in one host."

More HAProxy pros

Cons

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"DNS Management."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"Support response time could be improved."

More Cloudflare cons

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."

"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."

"The visibility could be improved."

"Pricing, monitoring, and reports can be improved."

"Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."

"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."

"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."

"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."

More HAProxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"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 free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."

"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."

"The product is open source."

"HAProxy is free open-source software."

"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."

"The tool is open-source."

"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."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

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What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...

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What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...

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What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 15% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 13% of the time

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 13% of the time

Akamai API Security vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 10% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

NetScaler vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

Envoy vs HAProxy

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 10% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs HAProxy

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

January 2026

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

HAProxy

December 2025

Download HAProxy product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.

HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.

HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.

HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.

HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.

HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support.
- Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
- Advanced DDoS and bot management
- Web application firewall
- Reliable expert support
- High performance modules
- Device detection and geolocation
- Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

“Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

HAProxy

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Information Not Available

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. HAProxy

December 2025

Free Report: F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. HAProxy

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. HAProxy and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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