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HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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 Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Service Mesh (3rd)
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.6%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

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.
PeterForster - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support
My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"HAProxy Enterprise Edition has been rock solid. We have essentially had no downtime caused by our load balancers in the last 10 months, because they’ve worked so well. Previously, our load balancers caused us multiple hours per year in downtime."
"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."
"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."
"It is stable. Period. Will not fail unless you do something wrong."
"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
"The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it works for my use case of application load balancing. I'm using it for PeerSense, and it's easy enough for PeerSense."
"We did not need technical support because the documentation is good."
"The Global WAF has saved us more than one time from unwanted traffic."
"We needed a Microsoft Threat Management Gateway server replacement solution for a customer and were impressed with the simplified deployment of the Kemp LoadMasters."
"Load-balancing is a great feature that is very easy to configure and it is always working fine."
"The configuration is really easy and the web portal is self-explanatory."
"From my personal experience, many firewalls provide Load Balancing functionalities, but Kemp Loadmaster has a lot of features and functionalities like what you can configure. So there are a lot of features but we use only five percent of it."
"With Kemp 360 Central, our customers get a nice overview of their Kemp products and an easy way to upgrade firmware on all devices from a single interface."
"The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures."
"The pricing of the solution is valuable."
 

Cons

"HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."
"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."
"We've changed solutions as it doesn't fit with our current needs."
"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."
"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."
"The web stats UI, which provides the status of the health and numbers, could greatly benefit from having a RESTful interface to control the load-balanced nodes. Although there is a hack around the UI (by issuing a POST request to HAProxy with parameters), a RESTful interface would greatly improve the automation process (through Chef and Ansible)."
"The product does not have any new technologies."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services."
"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."
"In the web interface, there are a lot of settings in the different menus and it would be helpful if there were an interactive help system or tooltips to help the administrators find and configure the right settings."
"The only thing I have struggled with is setting up automatic backups."
"The product is really good as-is out of the box. If there is one thing I would change is to have the license file not be coupled with the MAC address of the device. This is actually not really useful in a virtual environment where if you have a single VM with KEMP LoadMaster and you have not set up static MAC Address, if you, for example, recreate the VM and just load the disk file on a new VM it will get new MAC address and the NLB will not work as it will not see a proper license."
"Although Kemp is very user-friendly, it lacks a more custom configuration."
"Some of the support documentation seems to make assumptions that the person installing or configuring is experienced with the product or concepts."
"Several elements of the GUI need work. For example, if you have many content switches, it’s difficult to find the ones you need. And where is the search feature?"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"The tool is open-source."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
"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."
"Pricing for the perpetual licensing was fair to us for the features and ease of use we received."
"It has a very attractive ratio of price/performance."
"This is a cost-efficient product."
"At $2,500 USD, this is absolutely a fantastic buy for the money!"
"This product has good value and features for the money."
"From a cost perspective, Kemp is very competitive and is not hard to justify by any means."
"Nowadays, going with the virtual appliance is the easiest way and the cost is reasonable."
"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
3%
University
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Kemp LoadMaster?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes a lot of time to provide resolutions for issues. Also, I could see more capabil...
 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
LoadMaster Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.