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HAProxy vs NGINX Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Companies favor HAProxy for cost-effective traffic management, saving on load balancers, and retaining customers annually with positive ROI.
Sentiment score
7.2
NGINX Plus boosts website speed and ROI, reducing development resources and costs while offering flexibility and scalability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
HAProxy's customer service has mixed reviews with suggestions for better documentation, though premium support is appreciated but inconsistent.
Sentiment score
6.8
Most users haven't used NGINX Plus support, yet those who did found it effective, with varied response times.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
HAProxy scales efficiently, supporting diverse loads and thousands of users, adaptable for both small and large business needs.
No sentiment score available
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
HAProxy is highly rated for stability and reliability, though some users occasionally face configuration and compatibility challenges.
No sentiment score available
 

Room For Improvement

HAProxy needs better pricing, monitoring, documentation, dashboard functionality, performance stability, and enhanced GUI and TCP session control.
 

Setup Cost

HAProxy is free open-source software offering economic benefits, easy setup, and optional affordable extended features for integrated solutions.
NGINX Plus has moderate to high costs, with expenses increasing for multiple instances and additional licensed features.
 

Valuable Features

HAProxy offers load balancing, security, customization, scalability, open-source benefits, and efficient traffic management with user-friendly setup and cost savings.
 

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 (4th)
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.8%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.6%, down from 9.4% 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.
Ritesh-Bakhru - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation
NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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.
Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What do you like most about NGINX Plus?
It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?
NGINX is not cost-effective, especially for few applications, and is considered higher-priced.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
NGINX
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.