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HAProxy vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

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)
VMWare Avi Load Balancer
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 3.7%, up from 3.6% 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.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 24, 2022
Easy to set up and has good integration into the host environment but needs better third party integration
I'm not sure which version number we are on. It's one of the latest, I assume. We don't run the latest. We usually are either one or two versions behind. It is something we are exploring. We do have use cases and it will compete against our existing product line. That would have to go in the second half of this year. Right now, it's more of a comparison of how we use it right now. We don't use it really in production. We are going to definitely explore it and do our comparison and more in-depth analysis of the product and compare it against our existing product line. I'd advise potential users to do a very in-depth analysis of the products in comparison. And don't just look at the cover of it - really look into the detailed backend support infrastructure and if it can be implemented the way you need it to be. I'd rate the solution five out of ten. It's not a fully mature product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the solution for load balancing."
"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."
"We did not need technical support because the documentation is good."
"The ease of use of the configuration, and great documentation, are the most valuable features for us."
"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."
"Performance configuration options with threads, processes, and core stickiness are very valuable."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
"​​Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"Its visibility and login mechanism are the best parts. In addition to the great visibility it has a great dashboard and an easy to configure graphic user interface, a beautiful GUI."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for my organization is its UI since it allows us to see the clusters while providing a very specific and good overall understanding."
"The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management."
"What's most valuable in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its deployment capability, the ability to deploy in a dispersed service, with the service engines that can disperse and have a single control plane that can control the load balancing services across any available platform, wherever needed. The analytics of Avi Networks Software Load Balancer and flexibility of deployment are its most valuable features and the reasons why many people buy it."
"The WAF - the web application firewall itself - is great."
"The interface and software features are the most valuable aspects of this solution."
"The friendly user interface is valuable."
 

Cons

"We need to handle new connections by dropping, or queuing them while the HAProxy restarts, and because HAProxy does not handle split config files."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"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."
"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."
"There are three main areas to improve: 1) Make remote management more modern by adding API. 2) Propose a general HA ​solution for HAProxy (no I'm using keepalived for this). 3) Thread option should be a bit more stable."
"The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved."
"There is no standardized document available. So, any individual has to work from scratch to work it out. If some standard deployment details are available, it would be helpful for people while deploying it. There should be more documentation on the standard deployment."
"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"One struggle with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its integration with other VMware products. Integration could be improved in the solution so that you have a more unified control plane with it and other data center security and networking products that VMware sells. There has been a bit of a lag on the roadmap of new features that have come out there recently, but better interoperability with the hyperscale environments such as the AWS, Azure, GCPs of the world, and simpler deployment and interoperability with those existing tools, are areas that are receiving attention and could use additional attention today. These are the areas for improvement in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer."
"It doesn't match the development structure or user community of our existing product. It pales in comparison to that."
"IDS and IPS sites need to be more progressive."
"In terms of improvement, the pricing and documentation need improvement. We have had problems getting the documents."
"Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation."
"The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective."
"I did not go with it because their APM module is a different product altogether. It's a common thing that companies do. They sell something and then they add on top of it as a different product. It is a type of marketing strategy. But when it comes to the overall management, it takes a lot of time to really look into it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"It is free of cost."
"The tool is open-source."
"The product is open source."
"The tool is expensive."
"The licensing costs for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer are really variable. The product can be sold from a bandwidth utilization perspective. It can be sold from a per CPU perspective, depending on if you're looking at on-premises or hyperscale environments. Licensing costs vary quite a bit if you're familiar with the AWS Calculator, where you can see that it can widely vary per licensing model. On a scale of one to five, with one being not very good value for the money and five being great, I would rate the pricing for Avi Networks Software Load Balancer a five because its pricing is extremely competitive. Not all features are included with the license, for example, there's single licensing."
"I rate the solution price a four to five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high, since it is an affordable tool."
"With Avi Networks, you can buy a 10-Gig license and, if your primary data center goes down, in the flick of a switch you can move that license to your backup data center and it will generate the traffic... there are a lot of cost-effective measures."
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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
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
University
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 do you like most about Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management.
What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The product does not provide deep troubleshooting features. The solution must provide public IP features. F5 provides such features.
 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.