We performed a comparison between HAProxy and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: HAProxy is the winner in this comparison. It is powerful, stable, and has good load balancing capabilities. In addition, HAProxy is free of charge and has a proven ROI.
"The most valuable thing for me is TCP/IP Layer 4 stuff you can do with HAProxy. You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something."
"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
"Advanced traffic rules, including stick tables and ACLs, which allow me to shape traffic while it's load balanced."
"I can simplify configurations of many internal services (e.g. Web server configs) by moving some elements (like SSL) to HAProxy. I can also disable additional applications, like Varnish, by moving traffic shaping configurations to HAProxy."
"It is scalable."
"It solves a problem for me where I can build files, not based on the health of the check, but rather the speed of the check."
"Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
"It does an excellent job of load balancing."
"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."
"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure."
"I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The pricing is quite good."
"The tool helps manage microservices by providing developers with a platform to conduct tests and assessments on the web application. The custom domain option is one of the most valuable features I've found. This feature is incredibly helpful for the end-users of the web application. With the custom domain feature, you can change the lengthy link to a shorter, more memorable one. For example, instead of using a lengthy default link, you can customize it to something like imail.com, which is much easier to remember and share."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF)."
"The product does not have any new technologies."
"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 only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration. A GUI/web interface could be helpful for users who are not as experienced in the Linux shell. However, HAProxy does have another product that we evaluated called ALOHA, which has a web front-end, but we found it did not meet our needs."
"Improving the documentation with multiple examples and scenarios would be beneficial. Most users encounter similar situations, so having a variety of scenarios readily available on the tool's website would be helpful. For instance, if I were part of the HAProxy team, I'd create a webpage with different scenarios and provide files for each scenario. This way, users wouldn't have to start from scratch every time."
"Sometimes it's challenging to get through the log, and you need a log to understand what is going on. It isn't easy to map the logging with the documentation, and every time I read the log, I have to pull out the documentation to understand what I'm reading."
"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."
"While troubleshooting, we are having some difficulties. There are no issues when it is running; it is stable and very good; however, if there is a troubleshooting issue or an incident occurs, we will have issues because this is open-source."
"I want the solution's support to improve. The tool is also expensive."
"The tool's pricing could be improved."
"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."
"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."
"The monitoring on the solution could be better."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is harder to manage than Imperva. It is not intuitive and stable compared to other products."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The pricing of the solution could be improved. Right now, it's a bit expensive."
More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →
HAProxy is ranked 3rd in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 41 reviews while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is ranked 4th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 38 reviews. HAProxy is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of HAProxy writes "Offers good integration capabilities but needs to improve the monitoring part". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway writes "High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure". HAProxy is most compared with NGINX Plus, Kemp LoadMaster, Citrix NetScaler, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Envoy, whereas Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is most compared with Azure Front Door, Citrix NetScaler, F5 Advanced WAF, AWS WAF and Cloudflare. See our HAProxy vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report.
See our list of best Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) vendors.
We monitor all Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
