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HAProxy Reviews

Vendor: HAProxy
4.1 out of 5
Badge Leader
1,054 followers
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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.

Get the HAProxy Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, NetScaler and more!
HAProxy is the #2 ranked solution in top Service Mesh solutions and #4 ranked solution in top Application Delivery Controllers. PeerSpot users give HAProxy an average rating of 8.2 out of 10. HAProxy is most commonly compared to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway: HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway. HAProxy is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 56% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 19% of all views.
Buyer's Guide
HAProxy
May 2025
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HAProxy mindshare

Product category:
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
As of June 2025, the mindshare of HAProxy in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category stands at 12.4%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

PeerResearch reports based on HAProxy reviews

TypeTitleDate
CategoryApplication Delivery Controllers (ADC)Jun 1, 2025Download
ProductReviews, tips, and advice from real usersJun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonHAProxy vs NetScalerJun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonHAProxy vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)Jun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonHAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application GatewayJun 1, 2025Download
Suggested products
TitleRatingMindshareRecommending
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway3.77.5%79%48 interviewsAdd to research
NetScaler4.214.5%91%107 interviewsAdd to research
 
 
Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Users find HAProxy valuable for application load balancing, TCP/IP Layer 4 functionality, protocol-level decisions, ease of deployment and scalability, open-source benefits, customization, stability, user-friendly interface, simplicity, and cost savings. They appreciate features like WAF, forwarding proxy, blocking non-applicable requests, and integration ease.
  • "We use the solution for load balancing."
  • "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 solution is effective in managing our traffic."

Room for Improvement

HAProxy needs better documentation, improved pricing, and enhanced monitoring and reporting. Users find customization and troubleshooting challenging and seek more programming integration. The dashboards and user interface require improvements for better visibility and functionality. Logging and dynamic configuration changes can be tough to manage and require enhancements for clarity. Stability issues arise under heavy traffic, and better security models are needed. Integrations and support for multiple languages are also areas requiring attention.
  • "The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."
  • "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."
  • "The product does not have any new technologies."

ROI

The ROI from HAProxy is rated four out of five. It offers a good return by replacing OEM solutions with an open-source option, saving on traditional load balancer costs. It aids in customer retention and is preferred for managing traffic without high-end expenses.

Pricing

HAProxy is predominantly free, as it is open-source software. Many users leverage the freeware version, finding it fits well within their tech stack. The setup is straightforward, typically taking a day for completion. Some respondents mentioned inexpensive licensing models but did not provide specific costs. Overall, enterprises appreciate the cost-effectiveness and flexibility offered by HAProxy due to its open-source nature.
  • "HAProxy is an open-source solution."
  • "The tool is open-source."
  • "The product is open source."

Popular Use Cases

The primary use case of HAProxy is for load balancing across various applications and environments, including production, UAT, and financial trading systems. It is also employed for managing Redis clusters, controlling IP addresses, blocking invalid requests, SSL termination, and handling high-traffic API gateways. HAProxy is used as a reverse proxy for different environments, balancing HTTP and TCP traffic, and forwarding traffic for SMTP, SMPP, and email services.

Service and Support

Customers find that HAProxy's customer service and support are mostly reliant on self-service and community resources due to its open-source nature. Some users opt for premium support, which is responsive but could benefit from improved documentation. Several customers express a preference for self-research through available online resources. Support is described as good but impacted by communication delays and global shift changes. Many would appreciate better online documentation and knowledge bases.

Deployment

HAProxy's initial setup is generally straightforward and easy, especially for those with container and VMware knowledge. Documentation is useful but may require customization. Most setups are quick, ranging from minutes to a few days. Some find it as simple as other load balancers, while others consider it challenging and comparable to F5. Users with Linux expertise can deploy HAProxy swiftly, but larger enterprises might need more personnel for deployment. Automation tools like Terraform can expedite the process.

Scalability

HAProxy is considered highly scalable, supporting various user loads effectively. Users have reported it can efficiently handle thousands of connections daily. Many find it suitable for small to large enterprises, with some scaling up using multiple servers. Performance depends on the underlying hardware, but no significant issues with load handling have been mentioned. Users rate its scalability features positively, highlighting its adaptability and ease of scaling both the application and backend environments.

Stability

HAProxy is frequently updated as it is open-source. Users describe it as rock solid, generally stable, and reliable. Stability issues are rare, often linked to configuration or compatibility with other products. HAProxy efficiently handles failures, maintaining stability even if nodes go down. Users rate its stability highly, often eight or nine out of ten. It passes stability tests and is deemed very stable by infrastructure teams. Stability improvements are occasionally suggested.
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
Download our HAProxy Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers
By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
University
6%
Educational Organization
4%
Insurance Company
3%
Retailer
3%
Healthcare Company
3%
Energy/Utilities Company
3%
Media Company
3%
Hospitality Company
2%
Non Profit
2%
Real Estate/Law Firm
2%
Transportation Company
2%
Wholesaler/Distributor
2%
Pharma/Biotech Company
2%
Legal Firm
1%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
1%
Construction Company
1%
Outsourcing Company
1%
Logistics Company
1%
Performing Arts
1%
Consumer Goods Company
1%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
1%

Compare HAProxy with alternative products

Go!

Learn more about HAProxy

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

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Product Categories

Product Categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
Service Mesh

Popular Comparisons

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HAProxy reviews

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Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot user
Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of HAProxy
Aug 24, 2024
Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved

Pros

"We use the solution for load balancing."

Cons

"The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."

What is most valuable?

We use the solution for load balancing.

What needs improvement?

The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (279 words)
Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot user
Co-Founder at tenekit
Verified user of HAProxy
Apr 23, 2024
Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks

Pros

"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. "

Cons

"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. "

What is our primary use case?

I use the tool mostly for small and quick load-balancing tasks. Additionally, I integrate it with Docker because the integration is quite fine.

What is most valuable?

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. 

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (396 words)
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Vijay Muddu - PeerSpot user
Manager server admin and security at Vivaconnect
Verified user of HAProxy
Mar 12, 2024
Offers good integration capabilities but needs to improve the monitoring part

Pros

"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."

Cons

"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution in my company for TCP streams. I have not used the product for web servers like Apache and NGINX. I have used the product for SMTP and SMPP protocols. I also used the tool for email services and POP3 servers. HAProxy handles the area where traffic has to be forwarded from one port to another very well.

What needs improvement?

HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement.

In the future, the tool should have additional modules for different purposes.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (684 words)
Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot user
Network manager admin at Yamaha
Verified user of HAProxy
Jun 28, 2022
Open-source, simple to install, and reliable

Pros

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

Cons

"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.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (688 words)
Roger Seelaender - PeerSpot user
UCaaS Engineering Manager at EarthLink
Verified user of HAProxy
Oct 21, 2022
A stable, scalable solution included with the Loadbalancer.org WAF solution

Pros

"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."

Cons

"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.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (541 words)
Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot user
Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of HAProxy
Jul 20, 2022
Beneficial open source functionality, scalable, but support documentation lacking

Pros

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

Cons

"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.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (416 words)
Nathanel Sulimanov - PeerSpot user
Platform Architect at SES
Verified user of HAProxy
Jun 29, 2022
Product with many valuable features; load balancing gives peace of mind

Pros

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

Cons

"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. 

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (364 words)
AANKITGUPTAA - PeerSpot user
Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS
Verified user of HAProxy
Oct 26, 2022
Product version discussed: 2.0 and 3.0
Open-source, cuts costs, and is straightforward to set up

Pros

"It is scalable."

Cons

"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.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (649 words)