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HAProxy vs Imperva DDoS 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
7.8
Companies favor HAProxy for cost-effective traffic management, saving on load balancers, and retaining customers annually with positive ROI.
Sentiment score
6.3
Imperva DDoS ROI is complex, influenced by compliance, mitigation, cost savings, and service availability, enhancing financial efficiencies.
They know how much money they are losing while the system is down, so by increasing the possibility of not having a down website or web application, return on investment can be calculated easily.
 

Customer Service

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
7.2
Imperva DDoS support receives mixed reviews but is praised for fast resolutions, 24/7 availability, and improved quality.
I would rate the technical support of Imperva DDoS as ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
HAProxy scales efficiently, supporting diverse loads and thousands of users, adaptable for both small and large business needs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Imperva DDoS efficiently scales in cloud environments, though licensing costs and transitions from on-premise can pose challenges.
99% of customers are using the cloud version of Imperva DDoS protection, so they just purchase the new license and scale as needed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy is highly rated for stability and reliability, though some users occasionally face configuration and compatibility challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
Imperva DDoS is highly stable with few incidents, rated 8-9 for performance despite occasional cloud-related content delivery issues.
The stability of Imperva DDoS is very good, as it seems they have a lot of servers around the world.
 

Room For Improvement

HAProxy needs better pricing, monitoring, documentation, dashboard functionality, performance stability, and enhanced GUI and TCP session control.
Imperva DDoS needs interface improvements, reliable support, pricing transparency, enhanced features, and better global integration for reduced latency.
Maybe Imperva DDoS could use endpoints to get information about the attacks before they commence from the endpoint level or establish cooperation with endpoint vendors to share this information.
 

Setup Cost

HAProxy is free open-source software offering economic benefits, easy setup, and optional affordable extended features for integrated solutions.
Enterprise users find Imperva DDoS competitive, with zero setup costs; prices range $200-$10,000/month, offering valuable protection.
I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap and ten is very expensive.
 

Valuable Features

HAProxy offers load balancing, security, customization, scalability, open-source benefits, and efficient traffic management with user-friendly setup and cost savings.
Imperva DDoS provides robust, cloud-based security with ease of use, real-time monitoring, and comprehensive protection against attacks.
I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website.
 

Categories and Ranking

HAProxy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Service Mesh (2nd)
Imperva DDoS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (21st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

HAProxy and Imperva DDoS aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. HAProxy is designed for Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and holds a mindshare of 12.4%, down 12.8% compared to last year.
Imperva DDoS, on the other hand, focuses on Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection, holds 6.4% mindshare, down 7.9% since last year.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved
We use the solution for load balancing The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved. I have been using HAProxy for 12 years. We didn’t face any issues with the solution’s stability. I rate the solution’s stability an…
DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing is rated a ten on a scale where ten is very expensive. The solution is only cloud-based and does not provide on-premises services.
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
Pricing can be improved, as it is quite expensive. Additionally, support response times for emails can sometimes be delayed, which is an area that could use improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Imperva Incapsula
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetScaler, F5, Microsoft and others in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC). Updated: June 2025.
858,435 professionals have used our research since 2012.