HAProxy OverviewUNIXBusinessApplication

HAProxy is the #5 ranked solution in top Application Delivery Controllers. PeerSpot users give HAProxy an average rating of 7.2 out of 10. HAProxy is most commonly compared to NGINX Plus: HAProxy vs NGINX Plus. HAProxy is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 63% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 20% of all views.
HAProxy Buyer's Guide

Download the HAProxy Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: March 2023

What is HAProxy?

HAProxy is considered by many in the industry to be one of the fastest and most popular and trusted software load balancer products in the marketplace today. Organizations are able to immediately deploy HAProxy solutions to enable websites and applications to optimize performance, security, and observability. HAProxy solutions are available to scale to any environment.

HAProxy is an open-source product and has a robust, active, reliable community. The solutions are continually tested and improved on by the community. HAProxy offers a dynamic design to support the most modern architectures, microservices, and deployment environments (appliances, containers, virtual, and cloud).

HAProxy utilizes a cloud-native protocol, which makes it a complete solution for cloud services such as Red Hat OpenShift, OVH, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and more. It also can be used as the reference load balancer in OpenStack.

HAProxy Products

  • HAProxy One: This is a next-gen end-to-end application delivery platform created to secure and streamline modern application architectures. It offers a complete suite of solutions, such as application delivery software, turnkey, and appliance services observed and administered through a central control plane. The product supplies application acceleration, CDN, DDoS, bot management, WAF capabilities, and load balancing.
  • HAProxy Fusion Control Plane: This product enables organizations to streamline workflows, arrange traffic routing and security protocols, enhance the speed of delivery, and scale out of the organization’s applications. HAProxy Fusion Control Plane offers an intuitive user interface to observe and control the complete product lineup and API for administering numerous fleets of HAProxy Enterprise servers, either in the cloud or on premises.
  • HAProxy Edge: This product offering is an application delivery network (ADN) that provides a broad array of turnkey application services with amazing scale and complete visibility. Services include application and content acceleration, advanced security, and load balancing.
  • HAProxy ALOHA Hardware or Virtual Load Balancer: This product is a virtual load balancer or plug-and-play hardware constructed upon HAProxy Enterprise that is designed to support proxying at Layer 4 and Layer 7. It has a user-friendly GUI, simple deployment, and no limit on backend servers, making it a complete product for organizations desiring a reliable system to provide high-end load distribution for critical services.
  • HAProxy Enterprise Kubernetes Ingress Controller: This product is designed to facilitate smooth traffic flow into a Kubernetes cluster. It is able to automatically discover anomalies and changes in an organization's Kubernetes infrastructure and provide precise distribution of traffic to healthy pods, with no downtime caused by poor pod health or scaling changes. The product comes with an embedded WAF to optimize the security of an organization’s applications running in Kubernetes.
  • HAProxy Enterprise: This product is the enterprise-class edition of HAProxy offering a dynamic and sturdy code base with next-generation features, an enterprise suite of add-ons, professional services, and trusted support. 

    • Cluster-wide tracking and rate limiting
    • Advanced DDoS and bot management
    • Web application firewall
    • Reliable expert support
    • High performance modules
    • Device detection and geolocation
    • Real-time dashboard

Reviews from Real Users

Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.” - Nathanel S., Platform Architect at SES

“I use HAProxy for individuals who can not buy low balancers. I built NFV in a box and send individuals a pathway into an HAProxy VM. The setup was not difficult; it usually takes a day to complete for a VPC. When it comes to pricing, HAProxy is free.” - Nasir O., Network & Cloud Architect at Koala Compute Inc.

HAProxy was previously known as HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE.

HAProxy Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp

HAProxy Pricing Advice

What users are saying about HAProxy pricing:
  • "HAProxy is free open-source software."
  • "The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
  • "It is free of cost."
  • "HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
  • HAProxy Reviews

    Filter by:
    Filter Reviews
    Industry
    Loading...
    Filter Unavailable
    Company Size
    Loading...
    Filter Unavailable
    Job Level
    Loading...
    Filter Unavailable
    Rating
    Loading...
    Filter Unavailable
    Considered
    Loading...
    Filter Unavailable
    Order by:
    Loading...
    • Date
    • Highest Rating
    • Lowest Rating
    • Review Length
    Search:
    Showingreviews based on the current filters. Reset all filters
    UNIX System Administrator at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."
    • "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."

    What is our primary use case?

    I use it for managing Redis clusters where I have a front-end for a read-write and a front-end for a read-only. I have no idea who else in my company uses it. I had opted to use this because we have silos in our company. We have a network silo that does the load balancing, and I wanted to control how these tests worked with the load balancing. I wanted them to do load balancing where they hand off like a TCP Fast Open. They perform a check on these services with TCP Fast Open.

    For example, there is one free HAProxy service for each node, and they use TCP Fast Open for things like that. It's flipped to the HAProxy, and then they establish a persistent connection. It's more of a hand-off, and then I can do all the magic. You can do most of the things I'm doing with HAProxy in F5 too. However, it's siloed off and takes a long time to get things done. I don't have any agility. I took that upon myself with HAProxy because it's a lot quicker to do it myself instead of waiting weeks for somebody else to do it.

    What is most valuable?

    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. 

    What needs improvement?

    The logging is pretty hard to understand, but the documentation for the logging is decent. That would be my only criticism. 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.

    And there is some more functionality that I would like to see. For example, you'll do a TLS to the front leg— whatever connects to your load balancer. You do the HTBS or whatever TLS connection there. And then, on the back end, you usually have to clear it a lot of times. I want to be able to do TLS all the way through on both legs. I don't know if it can do that. HAProxy might be able to do this already, but I haven't done enough research to see if this is possible

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Probably about two years now.

    Buyer's Guide
    HAProxy
    March 2023
    Learn what your peers think about HAProxy. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
    687,947 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HAProxy is rock solid. I'm pleased with it.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    HAProxy is scalable. It easily handles the current loads, but my connections are pretty low. It can take a lot more than what I'm doing. I'm making around 200 connections per second, which doesn't put much stress on the solution. HAProxy can handle it pretty easy.

    How are customer service and support?

    I've never used any tech support. I just use the freeware.

    How was the initial setup?

    The setup was pretty straightforward. When I started using HAProxy, I played around with it in a container and built from source, so I got a good feel for what it could do. And then I picked up a book called Load Balancing With HAProxy. After I read that, I felt confident I could use this service in a production setting. I was able to tune the knobs I needed to adjust and understand things pretty well. The book is pretty decent, but I wouldn't mind seeing a newer version of it. It was helpful. 

    The HAProxy documentation on the web isn't bad, but the book is much nicer for me. I like to see how the authors apply HAProxy to specific use cases and leverage things. Also, they explain how to do something, whereas the documentation only tells you about the features and parameters. Sometimes it's hard for the documentation to show the importance of a feature and express how to do what you want. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I'm using the freeware version. I have no idea if there is a paid solution because I've never looked into it. I might in the future if I have a use case for it. But right now, I'm leveraging the free version, and it seems to fit well in this stack because I'm using the free Redis.   

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate HAProxy nine out of 10. My biggest recommendation for any new HAProxy user is to read Load Balancing With HAProxy by Nick Ramirez. If you're thinking about using HAProxy and you want to get your feet wet, read this book and follow along with it. Determine whether you're trying to do an HAProxy for a web service or something else and concentrate specifically on those pieces. I read the whole book and enjoyed it, but you can focus on one thing if you need to. This book is short, and you can just read the whole thing to understand it.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
    Sr. Network Engineer at Yamaha
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Open-source, simple to install, and reliable
    Pros and Cons
    • "I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
    • "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."

    What is our primary use case?

    For production purposes, we use HAProxy, which is a web application.

    Our primary use case is load balancing.

    What is most valuable?

    We are not fully utilizing it. We are only responsible for load balancing. The most used and valuable is load balancing.

    I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good.

    What needs improvement?

    Although HAProxy is essentially open-source, many features are not available.

    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.

    We are only experiencing problems at that time. Otherwise, everything is fine.

    Because we need to search for a document or some troubleshooting information. That could be beneficial to us.

    To resolve the troubleshooting issues, additional documentation and troubleshooting are required.

    The product is satisfactory. However, additional documentation, additional technical documents, and troubleshooting steps are the types of things that can only make this solution better. Also, more clarity on where the package is hitting and where it is stopping is needed.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using HAProxy for four or five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HAProxy is generally stable. We had only two days of problems in the last five years, this was an extremely rare occurrence. We are back to being stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have publicly permitted our web application for this, and approximately 5,000 users are using it.

    It is used every day because it is our production-related order-lease domain or something along those lines. We are also using this as a dealer, with approximately 5,000 users per day.

    Normal users. We will publish it on one of the websites that provide the production information. We provide the order and invoice the order to the product. These are the types of details. This is our dealership's publisher for an automotive dealership.

    It is essentially the dealership's publisher.

    HAProxy is scalable. There are plans to expand to the Japan team. They may suggest a paid tool.

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate their technical support a three out of five. Additional documents and troubleshooting should be made available on the internet.

    There is no direct support. We use open-source software and do not rely on their support. We rely on our knowledge, and we are studying the implementation.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Previously, we were using F5. F5 is a very good product.

    It's a great product that is also very stable and scalable, but it is very expensive in terms of price.

    We switched to HAProxy because it is open-source.

    We are also working with Zscaler and FortiGate.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is easy.

    I would rate the initial setup a three out of five.

    What about the implementation team?

    We completed the installation in-house and did not use a third party.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    HAProxy is free open-source software.

    What other advice do I have?

    It will primarily be determined by the budget, the size of their company's budget, or if you have the budget. I would always recommend the F5. Because it has more clarity and more features are available in the F5, if budget is an issue, go with HAProxy. It's a good product.

    If you are not utilizing very basic things that you should be using for the HAProxy.

    Depending on the balance If the balance is very minimal, they should use HAProxy, an open-source solution, but if the balance is larger, such as an enterprise, they should use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic.

    I would rate HAProxy an eight out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    HAProxy
    March 2023
    Learn what your peers think about HAProxy. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
    687,947 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    AANKITGUPTAA - PeerSpot reviewer
    Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Open-source, cuts costs, and is straightforward to set up
    Pros and Cons
    • "It is scalable."
    • "The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."

    What is our primary use case?

    The product is an open-source load balancer. We deploy it for our application as a front-end server where all the users come on that particular HAProxy server, and it is redirected to our back-end servers.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It helps include the reverse proxy or more security modules for enhancing security. It helps with enhancing web application security.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution is open-source. 

    HAProxy can provide protocol-level load balancing. We can use the HTTP or HTTPS load balancing, including the PCP and UDP protocol level load balancing.

    The setup is straightforward.

    It is scalable.

    The solution is stable. 

    It's saved project costs and time. Since the deployment is very easy and the open-source functionality saves a huge amount of cost in terms of project deployment.

    What needs improvement?

    The product should have more security and dashboard functionality for monitoring so that any administrator can see the usability and track all the incoming and outgoing requests. It should have a better dashboard GUI, and more security models should be there. The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs. We need it to be more visible.

    Documentation could be better.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used the solution for around four years. We started using it in 2018.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's reliable and very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's a scalable product.

    There are more than 2,000 users on the product right now. 

    We already scaled up with the different sets, so we previously scaled this solution.

    How are customer service and support?

    I did not solicit the help of any technical support. 

    The documentation that's available on the HAProxy is okay. There is some room for improvement in that regard. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We previously used a traditional load balancer.

    We used a TCP load balancer. The NGNIX, we use for the reverse proxy for HTTP and HTTPS protocol. However, for particular applications, we required TCP load balancer, so we used HAProxy there.

    HAProxy provides the TCP and UDP port protocol-based load balancing, and NGINX is the reverse proxy, providing a great solution for web traffic, HTTP, and HTTPS.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. It's not too complex. 

    One single administrator can manage and deploy this product.

    What about the implementation team?

    I handled the deployment of the product myself. 

    What was our ROI?

    We just replaced some of our OEM solutions with an open-source solution. We did not invest anything in that, we just save the money on some OEM products. We have to purchase some load balancers, however, we replaced this with the open-source option and they are performing well. Therefore, there is a return on investment in the sense that we replaced that traditional load balancer that we paid for.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    We do not need to pay for the product as it is open-source. 

    There's no additional cost. We can deploy and manage on our own, and community support is available in HAProxy.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated NGINX prior to using this product.

    What other advice do I have?

    If you require a TCP and UDP protocol for load balancing, this is a very great solution.

    I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Roger Seelaender - PeerSpot reviewer
    UCaaS Engineering Manager at EarthLink
    Real User
    Top 5
    A stable, scalable solution included with the Loadbalancer.org WAF solution
    Pros and Cons
    • "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 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."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case of this solution is to control the IP addresses accessing our devices and and blocking invalid requests to our back end servers.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It is much more flexible than a firewall since it gives you great logging and then control of what is let through to the WAF.

    What is most valuable?

    The ability to block constant requests for files that are not applicable to our VoIP deployment. We used to have a lot of 404s from our backend. Now they are blocked right up front.

    What needs improvement?

    The solution can be improved by controlling TCP behavior better rather than just reporting them in the logs. Automatic blocking of clients that don't properly close their TCP session (CH/CD) would be good.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using the solution for three years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is easily scalable. If I were to run out of CPU space, or memory space, it would be very easy to just take my rules and virtualize them into VMware, and get a much more powerful solution. The other choice is to get another pair of servers and use the load-balancing functionality that comes with them to go between the two server environments.

    How are customer service and support?

    The tech support is good however, there are sometimes delays in resolving issues because when there is a shift change there doesn't seem to be any communication between the support staff and we are constantly having to repeat our issues to the next person. The vendor follows the support around the globe approach that can lead to a lot of repetition and sometimes miscommunication.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is straightforward and took about two weeks to implement.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was completed in-house with the help of vendor technical support.

    What was our ROI?

    The solution helps with customer retention each year.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The licensing fee for the entire WAF solution is very affordable with Loadbalancer.org. There are no separate charges for HAProxy and WAF.

    What other advice do I have?

    I give the solution an eight out of ten.

    We're a very small company of 400 employees, so there are only two of us in VoIP engineering who maintain all the equipment, which includes phones, Metaswitch, and LoadBalancer.org. The solution is maintained by one person taking only one hour a day to monitor the logs and apply new rules.

    The solution is a layer seven device that allows your traffic to flow through. So if you are running any type of web interface for your customers, put a WAF in front of it that will allow you to limit the traffic that goes to the backend.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Real User
    Stability is number one and when configured correctly, it could run for years
    Pros and Cons
    • "Stability is number one."
    • "The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added."

    What is our primary use case?

    HAProxy has been our primary SSL termination technology in production. We use it for our own product, which is Qivos Cloud. It is a software service and we used HAProxy for high-traffic API gateways. These products load balance our servers.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We are using HAProxy, for secondary loads and use cases. There are times that our customers require specific static IP addresses versus AWS CloudFront, which uses IP pools. So when we have such environments, we use HAProxy for SSL termination and load balancing.

    What is most valuable?

    Stability is number one. We have never had problems with it. When configured correctly, it could run for years. We never had a task that we could not achieve with HAProxy.

    What needs improvement?

    The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added. Something that might help with syntax or common use cases.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using HAProxy for more than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HAProxy is very stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We had no problem with scalability both in terms of scaling HAProxy itself, or the backend behind it.

    How are customer service and support?

    We only used it for public resources, like the manual, documentation, or stack overflow. We could find the solutions easily.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We replaced HAProxy with CloudFront because we switched to a serverless option. We did not have a problem with HAProxy. We re-architected our solutions. SSL termination and load balancing now happen in AWS CloudFront and application load balancer.

    What about the implementation team?

    We deployed in-house. We learned how to use it. I would say less than a month. In the beginning, we only did specific things and over time we gained expertise and we expanded our users, but it was, more or less, a month to go with production.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    HAProxy was very easy to script, but it had a learning curve back then. I am talking about four or five years ago. Once we gained our expertise on what we wanted to do with HAProxy, it was easier. We only used the open-source version of HAProxy for pricing.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    HAProxy is something that we manage ourselves, so we cannot directly compare it with Amazon CloudFront. If we only focus on technology, it is the same features. The only reason we switched is because of management costs.

    What other advice do I have?

    HAProxy is definitely a dependable choice. The only thing that needs some attention is the initial learning curve. When you get past that, it is a great tool to use. We are very happy with it. I would rate HA Proxy a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Director at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 5
    Open-source, free, and has a lot of customizations, but needs more support and standard documentation for customizations
    Pros and Cons
    • "Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."
    • "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."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are just using this product in our UAT environment.

    What is most valuable?

    Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature.

    It is a complete open-source product. The good thing is that there is a lot of customization and development.

    What needs improvement?

    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.

    When you have to customize it for your application requirements, there are a lot of challenges. There should be more support for customization. To customize it better, there should be some kind of programming integration.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for two and a half years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is completely open-source, so updates come very frequently. To the most extent, it is stable.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    It is an open-source product, so you have to work on technical support. You can take premium support from HAProxy, and that helps a lot, but it is not comparable to other enterprise products because it is a free-of-cost product.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I also use F5. I am looking to replace F5 with HAProxy for some of my non-critical applications.

    HAProxy is open source. So, if you have cost concerns, you can go for it. It is good for basic application load balancing. If you don't have budget limitations or you have critical applications, you should definitely go for F5 because of the standardization and the product experience they have in handling mission-critical applications. 

    How was the initial setup?

    Its initial setup is easy and not very complex. If you have a general understanding of how containers and VMware work, it is not very problematic to deploy it.

    The initial setup documentation of HAProxy is good, but when you have to customize it for your application requirements, it gets difficult.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It is free of cost.

    What other advice do I have?

    We have currently deployed it for one product. For non-critical applications, it is a good choice. You can definitely go for it if you have cost concerns, your application is not very dynamic, or you are looking for a basic load balancing product. 

    I would rate HAProxy a six out of 10.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Beneficial open source functionality, scalable, but support documentation lacking
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source."
    • "HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are using HAProxy for load balancing.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source.

    What needs improvement?

    HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using HAProxy for approximately eight years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HAProxy is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability of HAProxy is good.

    We have approximately 10 servers utilizing this solution.

    Our organization is an enterprise, but we are using HAProxy for the basic requirements and functions. We are using the basic requirements for load balancing. I would recommend this solution for small businesses. For large businesses, I would recommend Citrix and F5.

    How are customer service and support?

    If we have any issues generally we open a ticket through the internet, and we receive a solution. They have been responsive.

    The support could improve by providing better documentation. If they had an online knowledge base it would be helpful.

    I rate the support from HAProxy a three out of five.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We used F5 in 2018 and it was a better solution than HAProxy, but it was expensive. In order to have the best features, you need to pay for a better solution, HAProxy is free.

    How was the initial setup?

    The deployment and configuration of HAProxy are not easy if we compare it with other solutions, such as F5. The full implementation took us one to two months to complete.

    I rate the initial setup of HAProxy a three out of five.

    What about the implementation team?

    We did the implementation of HAProxy in-house.

    We have one or two people who maintain HAProxy. They do the administration, testing, and all other maintenance. We did not require any third parties. The solution requires maintenance approximately three times annually. However, we are not using the solution extensively.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    HAProxy is a free open-source solution.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    The main difference between HAProxy and other solutions on the market is that it is open source. Otherwise, functional-wise, it's the same.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate HAProxy a seven out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Nathanel Sulimanov - PeerSpot reviewer
    Platform Architect at SES
    Real User
    Top 10
    Product with many valuable features; load balancing gives peace of mind
    Pros and Cons
    • "Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."
    • "HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use HAProxy for the load balancer. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind. 

    What is most valuable?

    HAProxy has a lot of features, so what's most valuable depends on what we are loading. The forwarding proxy is a valuable feature. HAProxy is a valuable product. 

    What needs improvement?

    HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using HAProxy for about 15 years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HAProxy is stable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    HAProxy is scalable. We have some 2,500 end users using HAProxy. They are mostly developers. 

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not use any other solution before we deployed HAProxy. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial HAProxy setup was straightforward. The setup is automated, which makes it instantaneous. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We deployed HAProxy in house. 

    What was our ROI?

    We did see a return on investment from HAProxy. On a scale of one to five, I would rate our ROI with a four. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    HAProxy is mostly open-source, so I cannot provide any pricing or licensing numbers. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We did not evaluate any other options before landing on HAProxy. 

    What other advice do I have?

    The advice I would give to others looking to implement HAProxy is to go with the on-prem version if you can. The cloud version is a bit different because a lot depends on HAProxy's compatibility with the cloud vendor itself. I would say to stick with the solution your cloud provider has put out.

    On a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and 10 being the best, I would give HAProxy a nine overall.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free HAProxy Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2023
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free HAProxy Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.