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HAProxy vs NGINX Service-Mesh 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

HAProxy
Ranking in Service Mesh
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd)
NGINX Service-Mesh
Ranking in Service Mesh
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 13.9%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Service-Mesh is 4.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh
 

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.
Fernando Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
A cost-effective and fully integrated service mesh that has good adaptability
The initial setup for NGINX Service-Mesh is straightforward. I have twenty engineers specifically for SI deployments, and we rely on gnet environments. Typically, we have many users, maybe a thousand users, and in Mexico, working with EC Telecom, we serve around five million users for the ISP solution, including internet and service provider solutions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
"Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."
"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."
"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
"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 features I find valuable in this solution are session control which automatically disconnects users that forget to log off, and the ability to write rules to either allow or block certain file requests."
"The solution is cost-effective and has good adaptability."
 

Cons

"There are three main areas to improve: 1) Make remote management more modern by adding API. 2) Propose a general HA ​solution for HAProxy (no I'm using keepalived for this). 3) Thread option should be a bit more stable."
"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."
"Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."
"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 no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."
"The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."
"NGINX Service Mesh could be improved by integrating more intelligence and stability through certifications and SSL certificates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is free of cost."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"The product is open source."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"The pricing for NGINX Service-Mesh is very reasonable, offering us scalability and cost-effectiveness."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Service-Mesh?
The pricing for NGINX Service-Mesh is very reasonable, offering us scalability and cost-effectiveness.
What needs improvement with NGINX Service-Mesh?
NGINX Service Mesh could be improved by integrating more intelligence and stability through certifications and SSL certificates. Additionally, I need to review the solution for DDoS environments to...
What is your primary use case for NGINX Service-Mesh?
I'm using it to deliver applications and run easy telecom in Mexico. It currently helps distribute ISP, retail, and telecom environments.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Isito, Envoy, HAProxy and others in Service Mesh. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.