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HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

HAProxy
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Service Mesh (5th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
3rd
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.9%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is 8.8%, down from 11.5% 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
Apr 17, 2024
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.
Sami - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 29, 2022
High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure
Our company uses the solution to publish services that are on Azure. There is more than one way to publish services.  You can use the Microsoft infrastructure for app services including small programming, configurations related to obligations, and publishing. Or you can publish manually by using…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."
"Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."
"I can't speak to all of the HAProxy features because we don't use them all, but load balancing is very good."
"It is scalable."
"The solution is effective in managing our traffic."
"The anti-DDOS PacketShield filtering solution (embedded in the physical appliances) as well as the BGP route injection are great features and heavily used."
"Load balancing is valuable, and we are also using the WAF feature."
"I can simplify configurations of many internal services (e.g. Web server configs) by moving some elements (like SSL) to HAProxy. I can also disable additional applications, like Varnish, by moving traffic shaping configurations to HAProxy."
"The tool is easy to use and quite flexible. It has policy management features as well. The solution screens all traffic to our web applications before passing it to the application. We recently tested it on one of our poorly developed applications, and the upgrade gave us a 100% result based on our tests. It's very effective as a security measure, and people can detect threats even through the web application."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF)."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is an easy-to-use solution."
"This is a SaaS product, so it is always up to date."
"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."
"The solution has built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is traffic management."
"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model. It could be cheaper."
"Documentation could be improved."
"I would like to see better search handling, and a user interface, with a complete functional graphical unit"
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"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 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."
"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 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."
"The tool is a pain to deal with when it comes to the area of configuration."
"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."
"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."
"It is a bit tricky to configure. You've got to have a very specific format to configure it. They should make it a little bit easier to configure. Mapping the certificates into it isn't easy, and it could be better. Currently, you've to write a bit of automation to pull certificates directly to HTTPS."
"The solution doesn’t support wildcard-based and regular expression-based rules."
"For the first-time user, it is difficult to understand so the user-interface needs to be improved."
"The solution needs improvements in integrating different services and creating a better application balance."
"The pricing of the solution could be improved. Right now, it's a bit expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HAProxy is free software. There are optional paid products (support/appliances)."
"HAProxy is an open-source solution."
"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"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."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a pretty affordable product. My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution. The additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution vary."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is expensive."
"I rate the pricing seven out of ten because some third-party solutions are even costlier than this."
"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."
"The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."
"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."
"The solution is fairly priced."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it.
 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,597 professionals have used our research since 2012.