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HAProxy vs Radware 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
7.1
HAProxy's open-source load balancer cuts costs, boosts efficiency, improves uptime, reduces staffing, and enhances scalability for users.
Sentiment score
5.5
Radware DDoS delivers significant cost savings and protection, reducing downtime and preventing financial and reputational damage effectively.
Operational efficiency has improved; we no longer have staff consistently monitoring backend servers during deployment or scaling events, as HAProxy's health checks and hitless reloads allow us to push changes with minimal manual intervention.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
This resulted in a drastic decrease in costs and, at the same time, the accuracy of the hits coming on HAProxy was almost around 100% or 99.99%.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
I estimate seeing a return on investment with HAProxy, as it significantly reduced staff requirements and enhanced scaling capabilities, particularly when transitioning from NGINX, which faced issues.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
The hybrid approach optimized infrastructure costs and personnel resources.
CIO at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Because of Radware DDoS, many attacks can be mitigated effectively.
Technical Specialist at HCLSoftware
I have seen a return on investment with Radware DDoS because it reduced our work by mitigating traffic before it reached the perimeter firewall, which lessened the need for extra security policies.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
HAProxy's customer service and technical support are highly rated for quick, expert assistance, though documentation could improve.
Sentiment score
7.1
Radware DDoS support is generally prompt and effective, with 24/7 emergency response, despite some noted delays.
Since we are utilizing the open-source edition, community forums, mailing lists, and GitHub have been invaluable, with typically someone having encountered the same problems we faced.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
My interactions with HAProxy's customer support were limited, but the feedback from my team indicated satisfactory service.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Providing assistance almost instantly when needed.
IT Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Ensuring less than one second mitigation for L3/L4 and less than ten seconds for L7.
CIO at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Sometimes I do not even get a response for days.
3rd Line Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
HAProxy efficiently handles scalability, easily adapting configurations for growing traffic, ideal for small to medium businesses and larger environments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Radware DDoS is a flexible, reliable, and scalable cloud-based solution praised for efficient performance and easy adaptation to needs.
We manage an automatic load balancing feature where we add HAProxy servers dynamically behind the application load balancer to handle more traffic.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
HAProxy's scalability is excellent; as our traffic expands, it handles load increases effortlessly.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
For scalability, HAProxy meets my needs, supporting our initial horizontal scaling and then adapting to vertical scaling in a VMware environment.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
In terms of scalability, Radware DDoS excels.
Associate Manager for Network and Cybersecurity at TP Northern Odisha Distribution Limited (TPNODL)
In terms of scalability, Radware DDoS is easy to use.
Technical Specialist at HCLSoftware
Radware DDoS's scalability is good; scaling up or down is easy without performance issues.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy is reliable, handles heavy traffic efficiently, with minimal downtime, quick support, and frequent updates enhancing stability and performance.
Sentiment score
8.2
Radware DDoS is stable, quickly resolves issues, and effectively maintains uptime despite occasional stability problems with related products.
This reliability serves as a key reason for our choice, providing us with confidence even when faced with heavy traffic.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The hot reload feature of HAProxy also really helped us so that we never had to shut it down to reload it.
CEo at CloudPositive
We have reduced a lot of servers, replacing them with one or two HAProxy servers which deliver better performance, accuracy, and an almost 100% success rate with requests.
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
In my opinion, there is no downtime experienced with Radware DDoS Protection Service due to external network redundancy.
Sr IT Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
DefensePro is the technology that is in front of the traffic and protects against DDoS attacks.
Professional Consultor Digital Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Radware DDoS is stable in my experience, with no downtime or reliability issues.
Senior Security Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

HAProxy needs a revamped GUI, improved APIs, better AWS integration, real-time config, enhanced docs, and stronger monitoring and security.
Radware DDoS users seek intuitive interfaces, enhanced reporting, better integration, pricing adjustments, and improved support for optimal performance.
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.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
An easier desktop interface to connect to a remote server and make changes on my PC would be beneficial.
DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The reloading functionality is effective as it allows soft reloads without interrupting traffic patterns.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
We suggest that clear visibility within a management console could significantly enhance Radware DDoS's usability.
Associate Manager for Network and Cybersecurity at TP Northern Odisha Distribution Limited (TPNODL)
There should be improved bot management integration that mitigates bot-based DDoS attacks completely.
Information Security Manager at Dalmia Bharat Ltd
Radware DDoS does not have any authentication countermeasures to mitigate any attacks, which needs to be addressed.
3rd Line Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users value HAProxy's competitive pricing and cost-effective licensing, especially compared to F5 and Citrix, despite initial setup costs.
Radware DDoS pricing is high but valued for security features, with flexible licensing for varying needs and budgets.
Since we use the open-source edition, there are no licensing fees, with the main cost being the infrastructure running on EC2 instances in AWS, which helps maintain low expenses.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Setting up HAProxy didn't cost anything for me.
DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The pricing remains competitive compared to other vendors.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Radware pricing is on the high end, suitable more for larger organizations.
IT Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
I didn't check pricing of other providers in depth but verified with two, and found Radware to be significantly cheaper compared to F5.
Sr IT Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We have a premium cost setup to align with a tier four uptime certified data center, storing and protecting critical infrastructure.
CIO at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Users praise HAProxy for reliable load balancing, customization, low latency, open-source benefits, and advanced features like secure traffic management.
Radware DDoS excels with multi-layered defense, adaptive mitigation, behavior-based detection, real-time monitoring, and easy configuration for enhanced security.
By moving all SSL termination to the load balancer, I now manage certificates in a single place, and I can also utilize Let's Encrypt with HAProxy's built-in ACME support, making renewal automatic.
Junior System Administrator & DevOps at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
HAProxy positively impacted our organization by exceeding scalability expectations, initially projected at 200k requests but ultimately handling over 15 million transactions per second without any issues.
Principal Engineer Manager at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
As a production engineer at that time, I definitely wanted to ensure that the system could handle massive connections, especially since we operated an e-commerce platform where we could not lose any customer calls.
CEo at CloudPositive
The support from Radware is also exceptional, as they are always willing to jump on a call to help solve issues and improve our network design.
IT Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
This solution is a significant win compared to other vendors because it tries to understand the traffic and the behavior of the traffic, and it utilizes intelligence or machine learning to mitigate false positives, which is highly customized for different types of customers.
Professional Consultor Digital Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The average time for Radware DDoS to detect an incident is only milliseconds, as even a delay of ten seconds is significant in networking.
Technical Specialist at HCLSoftware
 

Categories and Ranking

HAProxy
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (14th), Bot Management (7th), Service Mesh (2nd)
Radware DDoS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Radware DDoS is 8.2%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Radware DDoS8.2%
HAProxy1.5%
Other90.3%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Shrinivas Devarkonda - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
NK
Information Security Manager at Dalmia Bharat Ltd
Behavioral analytics and AI automation enhance security and performance
It provides protection for network applications and infrastructure level, and the best part is the behavioral-based detection that Radware provides us, along with real-time signature creation. We also have some applications where we have botnets running, and it provides protection against them. Web DDoS targets the application layer, which is layer seven of the OSI model. For that, we focus on the Web DDoS technique for bot-based attacks because we have many applications where bots are running. We also face many random URL attacks every day, and it protects against malicious or suspicious random URL attacks. It ensures both security and performance. It achieves this by learning behavior patterns and providing protection without blocking normal traffic. These are some of the features I am particularly satisfied with in this product.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Non Profit
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise21
 

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 HAProxy?
Since we used the open-source version, we were not concerned about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What do you like most about Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service?
The most important part is that Radware DDoS integrates seamlessly and provides anomaly identification, real-time notifications, and security against DDoS attacks. It also helps us with multi-layer...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service?
For Radware Cloud DDoS Protection, the pricing model can vary based on a number of factors such as the scale of the business, the specific level of protection required, the geographical regions cov...
What needs improvement with Radware Cloud DDoS Protection Service?
The time it takes to upload a site to the cloud is critical when under attack. If a site is down, a quick response to migrate the site to the cloud is essential. It currently takes about 15 to 20 m...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Radware DDoS Protection Service, Radware DefensePro, Radware DefenseFlow
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Myntex, APAC retailers
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. Radware DDoS and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.