HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

HAProxy and Progress Software are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. HAProxy is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.6, while Progress Software is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.0. HAProxy holds a 12.3% mindshare in ADC, compared to Progress Software’s 7.4% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of HAProxy users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Progress Software users who would recommend it.

HAProxy

Read 42 HAProxy reviews

7,752 Views
4,910 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Kemp LoadMaster

Read 49 Kemp LoadMaster reviews

4,931 Views
2,759 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

HAProxy

Kemp LoadMaster

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Kemp LoadMaster and HAProxy both compete in the load balancing category. Kemp LoadMaster appears to have an edge with its integrated features and comprehensive support, as highlighted in the feature comparison and customer service feedback.

Features: Kemp LoadMaster offers robust features such as load balancing, geo-redundancy, and integration with Azure. It supports key Microsoft applications like Exchange and Skype for Business, and includes security features like the Web Application Firewall. HAProxy is highly customizable with excellent performance and flexibility, featuring a wide range of load balancing algorithms and protocol-level support.

Room for Improvement: Kemp LoadMaster can improve its documentation clarity and the user-friendliness of its advanced features. Users seek better interfaces and enhanced reporting capabilities. HAProxy needs improvements in GUI design and better support for complex configurations. Enhancements in logging, monitoring, and management interface would also benefit HAProxy.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kemp LoadMaster is praised for its quick and easy deployment in both on-premises and private cloud environments. It provides strong and responsive technical support. HAProxy offers reliable deployment in similar environments and dependable support, but lacks the extensive pre-configurations and customer focus seen with Kemp.

Pricing and ROI: Kemp LoadMaster offers competitive pricing and high ROI with its all-in-one approach, along with free trials to facilitate adoption. HAProxy's open-source model provides cost benefits but may entail indirect costs related to expertise and added features. While HAProxy can be cheaper upfront, the return with LoadMaster's integrated features and structured support often surpasses initial costs for many businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster

January 2025

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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

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)

Kemp LoadMaster

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

8th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.3%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.4%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

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.

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PeterForster

Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

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."

"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."

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

"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."

"The solution is user-friendly and efficient."

"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."

"It reduced the load on our main load balancers."

"Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."

More HAProxy pros

"It has been functional. We don't have any outages."

"Simple to install with good documentation."

"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."

"It has greatly fortified the performance and uptime of our front-door email ingress, simplified and segmented mail routing, and reduced admin overhead for mail issue resolution and troubleshooting."

"It helps with efficiency and reactivity, in case of assistance needs."

"The most valuable features for us are the Load Balancing and Web Application Firewall, as we have a lot of web applications."

"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."

"The pricing of the solution is valuable."

More Kemp LoadMaster pros

Cons

"It needs proper HTTP/2 support."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."

"The product does not have any new technologies."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I would like to evaluate load-balancing algorithms other than round robin and SSL offloading. Also, it would be helpful if I could logically divide the HAProxy load-balancing into multiple entities so that I would install one HA Proxy LB application which could be used for different Web servers for different applications. I am not sure if these features are available."

More HAProxy cons

"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?"

"Perhaps Kemp could offer some training videos."

"It would be very helpful to get all the http/https session logs by default in the log monitor without activating debugging mode like an apache web sever natively does"

"To make it a perfect ten out of ten it would need better connection logging. If there is an active connection, that there is better logging. It should also have better management monitoring tools."

"Third, the password history restriction needs improvement. For example, the password policy will restrict the user to always use a unique password combination. The password should not be reused for a minimum of three generations of passwords."

"They were still in the process of development, and for example, we set it up in a cluster. So it was one logistical unit built out of two physical devices. And the expected behavior, which I know from other devices, will be formed into a logic cluster. It's that you configure one unit. Then you bring the second unit into this cluster with the already configured primary unit. So the secondary box pulls all the configured ones from its neighbor, does everything automatically, and then synchronizes with this primary neighbor. And then it works, like, one logical unit. And this didn't work with the Kemp's initially, where they caused a lot of issues when building up a cluster, so there were some specials on how to set this up. When we built or set them up for the first time and the months afterward with no new software releases, there were a couple of problems, but in the end, they worked fine. So, they developed a lot and learned from what they've responded to, what we responded to them, and what needs fixing."

"It would be much easier to have the management interface directly integrate with the Kemp Support library, allowing you to choose the desired template from the online catalog to then directly download to the LoadMaster."

"I want to have the ability to pull a particular server. The DevOps portion was challenging for me, like if I needed to redirect from one IP to another URL. I needed to look that up, and the knowledge base is not well organized. When I look for information about Kemp on the Internet, I don't find many articles or something like that."

More Kemp LoadMaster cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."

"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."

"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."

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

"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."

"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible."

"The tool is open-source."

"It is free of cost."

More HAProxy pricing and cost advice

"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."

"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."

"They have multiple tiers of licensing and you can upgrade it easily."

"The Kemp LoadMaster is a tremendous value."

"Less expensive than Citrix."

"The setup cost and pricing plan is reasonable and will ultimately give you a worthy return."

"This is a cost-efficient product."

"The price is great and the value is definitely there."

More Kemp LoadMaster pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

65%

Computer Software Company

Government

University

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about HAProxy?

The solution is effective in managing our traffic.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs HAProxy

Compared 15% of the time

NGINX Plus vs HAProxy

Compared 13% of the time

Istio vs HAProxy

Compared 12% of the time

NetScaler vs HAProxy

Compared 12% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

More HAProxy Competitors

NGINX Plus vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 19% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 16% of the time

NetScaler vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 10% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Kemp LoadMaster

Compared 6% of the time

More Kemp LoadMaster Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HAProxy

January 2025

Download HAProxy product report

Buyer's Guide

Kemp LoadMaster

January 2025

Download Kemp LoadMaster product report

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE

LoadMaster Load Balancer

Overview

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

Kemp LoadMaster is a powerful load balancing solution that also serves as a web application firewall. Its primary use case is load balancing and application load balancing, making it an ideal solution for organizations that must distribute traffic across multiple servers. Kemp's integration with an active directory for ESP usage, hosting/deployment of SSL certificates, and pricing are some of its most valuable features.

Using Kemp has helped organizations mitigate cross-scripting vulnerabilities, cookie-related issues, and content security policy issues. It has also allowed them to handle everything with Kemp instead of working on each application individually.

Progress Software

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

Buyer's Guide

HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster

January 2025

Free Report: HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster

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