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HAProxy vs HashiCorp Consul comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

HAProxy
Ranking in Service Mesh
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd)
HashiCorp Consul
Ranking in Service Mesh
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 13.6%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HashiCorp Consul is 5.4%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for for small and quick load-balancing tasks
What I like best about the product is its simplicity and speed. When you need to set up a load balancer quickly, HAProxy offers options like sticky sessions and round-robin. It's also fast to configure, including adding SSL for security. While it may have fewer options than other solutions like F5, HAProxy gets the job done for basic load-balancing tasks. The reliability features of HAProxy were particularly useful in a scenario where I needed to test load balancing between two Tomcats. Since these domains were inaccessible, I set up a third Docker with HAProxy, which had access to the Tomcat domains. I then configured HAProxy to handle the load balancing. This setup allowed the client to interact with HAProxy. The solution's integration with other elements is easy.
Phanindra Sangers - PeerSpot reviewer
Has an efficient key vault feature, but its integration capabilities need enhancement
I recommend HashiCorp Consul for beginners. It is a stable tool. The key-vault storage feature has significantly enhanced our configuration management process. We have maintained the secret software applications in the vault and retrieved the information from Kv. I rate the product a seven out of ten. It is good open-source software to be managed within the production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."
"I have found HAProxy very helpful in replicating production environment architecture in a development and testing environment."
"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."
"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
"We were able to use HAProxy for round robin with our databases, or for a centralized TCP connection in one host."
"Scalable and inexpensive."
"HAProxy potentially has a good return on investment"
"I estimate that this product has saved our company hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in possible downtime from previous load balancers. We make a lot of our money from online sales, so it is critical to have 99.9% uptime."
"The product's most valuable features are support for Service Mesh TLS and canary deployment."
"The documentation is good."
"HashiCorp Consul's most valuable feature is the automation of many processes, which limits the errors from user interaction."
 

Cons

"The visibility could be improved."
"The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."
"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 configuration should be more friendly, perhaps with a Web interface. For example, I work with the ClusterControl product for Severalnines, and we have a Web interface to deploy the HAProxy load-balancer."
"Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."
"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"They could improve issues related to triggering generic deployments for the platform."
"The command line of HashiCorp Consul could be more intuitive to make it easier to use."
"Health check outputs are delayed sometimes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"The product is open source."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"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."
"It is free of cost."
"In case of budget constraints, we opt for the product's business support licenses and use an open-source version"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend HAProxy?
I do recommend HAProxy for more simple applications or for companies with a low budget, since HAProxy is a free, open-source product. HAProxy is also a good choice for someone looking for a stable ...
What do you like most about HAProxy?
The solution is effective in managing our traffic.
What do you like most about HashiCorp Consul?
The product's most valuable features are support for Service Mesh TLS and canary deployment.
What needs improvement with HashiCorp Consul?
They could improve issues related to triggering generic deployments for the platform. We have raised multiple support cases. They could enhance the integration approach with Service Mesh tools. Add...
What advice do you have for others considering HashiCorp Consul?
I recommend HashiCorp Consul for beginners. It is a stable tool. The key-vault storage feature has significantly enhanced our configuration management process. We have maintained the secret softwar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. HashiCorp Consul and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.