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HAProxy vs NGINX Plus vs NetScaler 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetScaler is 14.4%, down from 15.9% 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

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.
DEMİRHAN ÇAVUŞOĞLU - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool for centralized management including inventory and sales tracking
Citrix ADM has the ability to implement policies to tighten security. For instance, you can restrict access to your network from outsiders or lack necessary security measures such as antivirus programs. Additionally, there's the Delivery Controller, which allows for comprehensive monitoring and management tasks such as remote restarts, maintenance, and registration. Another essential component is the Director, which provides detailed insights into sessions, including identifying session failures, connection issues, user lockouts, etc. It presents a list of problems to address, enabling you to click on them and resolve them efficiently.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"HAProxy potentially has a good return on investment"
"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."
"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
"It reduced the load on our main load balancers."
"The technical support has been, in one word, perfect. Every time I call, I’m on the phone with a representative within five minutes who is highly skilled and willing to help, whether in the case of critical issues or simple advice."
"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."
"Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."
"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."
"What I like most about Citrix NetScaler is its stability, and I didn't see a lot of issues with it."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It is the best product out there."
"The most valuable feature is the content switching."
"The most valuable features of Citrix ADC are load balancing and application firewall."
"NetScaler Gateway: Why? Availability/Security: We delivered more than 200 applications thru Xenapp. This feature give us the possibility to deliver the applications anywhere. Currently, 30% of access is made through our NetScaler Gateway (Internet connections)."
"Just one solution can handle thousands of users... So, it is a very convenient tool to use."
"The program is easy to install and to set up."
"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."
"​The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable.​"
"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."
"I receive very good support."
"Supports IMAP, POP and SMTP protocols for the reverse proxy."
"With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically."
"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."
 

Cons

"HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."
"The solution can be improved by controlling TCP behavior better and mandating to clients what the expected outcome must be in order to avoid receiving contestant timeout logs."
"The web stats UI, which provides the status of the health and numbers, could greatly benefit from having a RESTful interface to control the load-balanced nodes. Although there is a hack around the UI (by issuing a POST request to HAProxy with parameters), a RESTful interface would greatly improve the automation process (through Chef and Ansible)."
"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup. The clustering is mainly a configuration replication and is great in a case of active-passive usage. In the case of an active-active (or with more than two nodes) where the configuration is not fully identical, it cannot be used as-is."
"There is room for improvement in HAProxy's dynamic 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."
"If nbproc = 2, you will have two processes of HAProxy running. However, the stats of HAProxy will not be aggregated, meaning you don't really know the collective status in a single point of view."
"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."
"Citrix ADC is a complex product, and it takes time to understand these things. But the documentation is poor, and the deployment is difficult. Integration could also be better because what I find is that you cannot easily integrate the panel in the second sector. What I have found is that in the last index, there is a limitation when getting validated. Technical support could also be better."
"The user interface could be more friendly. Some wizards and other documentation for administrators, as well as some use cases, helps us to understand the solution."
"Citrix Web App and API Protection could improve in the area of licensing"
"The WAF component needs to be simplified so that it is easier to use."
"Citrix is more expensive than Horizon."
"An area for improvement would be the difficulty in finding information about standard licensing costs over the internet. They should provide some reference prices on the net to be quickly referred to."
"Does not include security. A web application firewall would be a nice addition."
"The main areas for improvement would be around documentation and support. If a feature can be used in two or three ways, show that feature being used in all of those ways. Documentation seems to only cover the primary use case and leaves you to either run through trial and error or consult the user community. In terms of support, I have never actually had them solve any of my issues. I have always solved them myself and then provided the resolution to support."
"The center management system could be improved."
"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present."
"Our most challenging part was to run an older PHP website reverse-proxied through NGINX. That was not fun."
"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application. As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified."
"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."
"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."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"It is free of cost."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"We have a yearly licencing fee, and there are no additional costs."
"The solution is undoubtedly very good, but it is expensive."
"For partners, NetScaler is not as expensive price-wise versus F5."
"There isn't much of a difference between the cost of Citrix and that of other similar solutions."
"For the specific use case that my customers primarily engage with, I would give the pricing a rating of seven out of ten."
"We have been evaluating F5, Citrix, and other ADC products. Citrix is the most expense of all of them."
"When compared to other solutions, the cost is high."
"Licensing is adequate. I wanted to have a more prominent license, but until I do they don't give enough support. The additional cost would be too much."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
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

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.
What do you like most about Citrix ADC?
The most valuable feature for us is the application firewalling in Citrix NetScaler, ensuring only valid traffic ente...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix ADC?
After deployment, Citrix Netscaler shifted to a subscription-based license scheme for support, which is slightly more...
What needs improvement with Citrix ADC?
Citrix NetScaler is a robust product, but mastering it requires significant learning and training due to its complexi...
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

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Citrix ADC, Citrix NetScaler VPX, NetScaler Console, NetScaler Web Application Firewall
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
ABB Schweiz, Aer Lingus, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amnet Technology Solutions, Aramex International, Ascenty, Atos, Autodesk
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.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.