F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs HAProxy comparison

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and HAProxy both compete in the load balancing category. F5 LTM appears to have the upper hand in advanced features and application integration, while HAProxy is preferred for its simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Features: F5 BIG-IP LTM offers advanced scripting through iRules for customizable traffic management, includes modules like Web Application Firewall and SSL Offloading, and provides integration capabilities with applications such as Oracle PeopleSoft. HAProxy, on the other hand, is known for its high reliability and stability, offering multiple load balancing algorithms and a straightforward open-source solution with options for enterprise support.

Room for Improvement: F5 BIG-IP LTM is often criticized for its high cost and complex licensing, along with a challenging initial setup. Users call for better reporting tools and enhancements in its GUI. HAProxy's management interface is generally straightforward but could improve in dynamic configuration and logging, with better documentation and monitoring to enhance user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 BIG-IP LTM is renowned for its rich feature set and extensive use in various deployments, although the initial setup can be difficult. Technical support is mixed with varying reviews on responsiveness. HAProxy offers straightforward deployment for on-premises and cloud environments, and its customer service is well-rated for simplicity and fewer support dependencies due to its open-source nature.

Pricing and ROI: F5 BIG-IP LTM is a premium product with a cost that reflects its capabilities, although some users find it prohibitive compared to competitors. It offers compelling performance and feature set for its price. HAProxy, being primarily open-source, provides an attractive cost benefit with its free version, making it a cost-effective solution for those seeking reliability without high expenses. The enterprise version of HAProxy offers additional functionality at a much lower cost than F5, providing a good ROI for budget-conscious organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. HAProxy Report (Updated: January 2025).

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. HAProxy

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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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

120

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HAProxy

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Service Mesh (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is 15.3%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 12.6%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Mahmoud-Yassin

Head of IT Infrastructure and Security Operations at United Arab Bank

You can fully automate disaster recovery

LTM's cloud capabilities could be improved. Cloud providers all offer load balancing, but you can't get the same level of security. F5's cloud service is still not on par with its on-prem service. F5 acquired multiple companies a few years ago, but they still haven't integrated those solutions. For example, F5 acquired Shape Security, which had an excellent solution for detecting bots and automated login attacks, but F5 offers the solution in an inflexible way. It is only available as a cloud-based solution. It isn't zone-based. Some companies are restricted from sending financial data outside the country because of GDPR in Europe or other national regulations. Here in the UAE, we can't send host data out.

Read full review

Mehdi El Filahi

Co-Founder at tenekit

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The load balancing function, the monitors that you can create, and iRules programmability are most valuable."

"Where we are finding the AWS version helpful is when we are trying to scale up new environments. AWS Marketplace helps here a lot."

"Secure and scalable traffic management solution for applications. Good for bigger environments."

"It has made it a single entry point for all users, verging across all the VPCs. It is more of an SSO solution versus multitier user loggin."

"It is a very good, flexible solution. It helps us to catch up on flaws in our partner solutions on top of its load balancing feature."

"The product is very stable. We put a decent amount of stress on it given our load."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features of the solution are in the area of DDoS and WAF."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pros

"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."

"Performance configuration options with threads, processes, and core stickiness are very valuable."

"The VRRP redundancy is also a mission-critical feature that works seamlessly. I can bring down a server live with minimal downtime because of this."

"The solution is user-friendly and efficient."

"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."

"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."

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

"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."

More HAProxy pros

Cons

"Logging is a bit of a problem. Logging and monitoring are only in plain text. You have to search and you have to know what you are searching for to find anything. So of course, monitoring and getting alerts for abnormal situations is hard. There are no tools for monitoring and alerts"

"Its price can be better. It is a bit expensive."

"Security and Reporting."

"Internet and cloud support could be improved."

"The solution is scalable."

"There is a challenge in Pakistan. This is when there is a hardware failure. Sometimes, it takes more time to get a replacement because it is sent out from the U.S. or some other regional outpost. Thus, it takes two to three days to receive a replacement."

"I think the logging could be improved."

"In terms of native integrations, there is a lot of instability. Also, integration is not robust with F5."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) cons

"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."

"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."

"The only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration. A GUI/web interface could be helpful for users who are not as experienced in the Linux shell. However, HAProxy does have another product that we evaluated called ALOHA, which has a web front-end, but we found it did not meet our needs."

"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."

"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."

"The product does not have any new technologies."

"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."

"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."

More HAProxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is high for this product, so it's not suitable for small customers, e.g. those with small environments."

"F5 BIG-IP can be expensive, although there are trial versions available which are helpful to find out if the solution is right for your company."

"The price of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is too high."

"The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition."

"The solution is quite expensive if we compare it with the competition."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. The main reason that we went this way was the simplicity of buying it there. It is maintained and upgraded for us, and this makes it easy to stay current."

"This is a high-priced tool. We pay for its license yearly."

"If your IT budget is good, go for it."

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) pricing and cost advice

"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."

"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."

"HAProxy is an open-source solution."

"HAProxy is free open-source software."

"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."

"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."

"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?

There are no specific areas for improvement as it is already well-resolved and doesn't require further enhancements.

What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?

The primary use case includes load balancing to serve application servers and basic web application firewall solutions. Our customers use it for that purpose.

What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)?

The solution is robust and reliable.

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?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

Fortinet FortiADC vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Comparisons

Compared 18% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 8% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 7% of the time

NGINX Plus vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 15% of the time

NGINX Plus vs HAProxy

Compared 14% of the time

NetScaler vs HAProxy

Compared 12% of the time

Istio vs HAProxy

Compared 12% of the time

Envoy vs HAProxy

Compared 6% of the time

More HAProxy Competitors

Product Reports

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)

Download F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) product report

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) report

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Also Known As

F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

Learn More

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Overview

F5 BIG-IP LTM optimizes the speed and reliability of your apps via both network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on app and server and connection management conditions, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves application and infrastructure responsiveness. BIG-IP LTM's architecture includes protocol awareness to control traffic for the most important applications. BIG-IP LTM tracks the dynamic performance levels of servers and delivers SSL performance and visibility for inbound and outbound traffic, to protect the user experience by encrypting everything from the client to the server.

BIG-IP LTM provides enterprise-class Application Delivery Controller (ADC). You get granular layer 7 control, SSL offloading and acceleration capabilities, and advanced scaling technologies that deliver performance and reliability on-demand. The highly optimized TCP/IP stack combines TCP/IP techniques and improvements in the latest RFCs with extensions to minimize the effect of congestion and packet loss and recovery. Independent testing tools and customer experiences show LTM's TCP stack delivers up to a 2x performance gain for users and a 4x increase in bandwidth efficiency.

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.

Sample Customers

Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.

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F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs. HAProxy