We primarily use HAProxy for the load balancer.
Platform Architect at SES
Product with many valuable features; load balancing gives peace of mind
Pros and Cons
- "Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind."
- "HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Having the right load balancing solution – which is what HAProxy is – and protection in place gives organizations peace of mind.
What is most valuable?
HAProxy has a lot of features, so what's most valuable depends on what we are loading. The forwarding proxy is a valuable feature. HAProxy is a valuable product.
What needs improvement?
HAProxy could do with some good combination integrations.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HAProxy for about 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HAProxy is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HAProxy is scalable. We have some 2,500 end users using HAProxy. They are mostly developers.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use any other solution before we deployed HAProxy.
How was the initial setup?
The initial HAProxy setup was straightforward. The setup is automated, which makes it instantaneous.
What about the implementation team?
We deployed HAProxy in house.
What was our ROI?
We did see a return on investment from HAProxy. On a scale of one to five, I would rate our ROI with a four.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
HAProxy is mostly open-source, so I cannot provide any pricing or licensing numbers.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate any other options before landing on HAProxy.
What other advice do I have?
The advice I would give to others looking to implement HAProxy is to go with the on-prem version if you can. The cloud version is a bit different because a lot depends on HAProxy's compatibility with the cloud vendor itself. I would say to stick with the solution your cloud provider has put out.
On a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and 10 being the best, I would give HAProxy a nine overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
UNIX System Administrator at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable thing for me is TCP/IP Layer 4 stuff you can do with HAProxy. You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
I use it for managing Redis clusters where I have a front-end for a read-write and a front-end for a read-only. I have no idea who else in my company uses it. I had opted to use this because we have silos in our company. We have a network silo that does the load balancing, and I wanted to control how these tests worked with the load balancing. I wanted them to do load balancing where they hand off like a TCP Fast Open. They perform a check on these services with TCP Fast Open.
For example, there is one free HAProxy service for each node, and they use TCP Fast Open for things like that. It's flipped to the HAProxy, and then they establish a persistent connection. It's more of a hand-off, and then I can do all the magic. You can do most of the things I'm doing with HAProxy in F5 too. However, it's siloed off and takes a long time to get things done. I don't have any agility. I took that upon myself with HAProxy because it's a lot quicker to do it myself instead of waiting weeks for somebody else to do it.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable thing for me is TCP/IP Layer 4 stuff you can do with HAProxy. You can go down to the protocol level and make decisions on something.
What needs improvement?
The logging is pretty hard to understand, but the documentation for the logging is decent. That would be my only criticism. 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.
And there is some more functionality that I would like to see. For example, you'll do a TLS to the front leg— whatever connects to your load balancer. You do the HTBS or whatever TLS connection there. And then, on the back end, you usually have to clear it a lot of times. I want to be able to do TLS all the way through on both legs. I don't know if it can do that. HAProxy might be able to do this already, but I haven't done enough research to see if this is possible
For how long have I used the solution?
Probably about two years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HAProxy is rock solid. I'm pleased with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HAProxy is scalable. It easily handles the current loads, but my connections are pretty low. It can take a lot more than what I'm doing. I'm making around 200 connections per second, which doesn't put much stress on the solution. HAProxy can handle it pretty easy.
How are customer service and support?
I've never used any tech support. I just use the freeware.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was pretty straightforward. When I started using HAProxy, I played around with it in a container and built from source, so I got a good feel for what it could do. And then I picked up a book called Load Balancing With HAProxy. After I read that, I felt confident I could use this service in a production setting. I was able to tune the knobs I needed to adjust and understand things pretty well. The book is pretty decent, but I wouldn't mind seeing a newer version of it. It was helpful.
The HAProxy documentation on the web isn't bad, but the book is much nicer for me. I like to see how the authors apply HAProxy to specific use cases and leverage things. Also, they explain how to do something, whereas the documentation only tells you about the features and parameters. Sometimes it's hard for the documentation to show the importance of a feature and express how to do what you want.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm using the freeware version. I have no idea if there is a paid solution because I've never looked into it. I might in the future if I have a use case for it. But right now, I'm leveraging the free version, and it seems to fit well in this stack because I'm using the free Redis.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate HAProxy nine out of 10. My biggest recommendation for any new HAProxy user is to read Load Balancing With HAProxy by Nick Ramirez. If you're thinking about using HAProxy and you want to get your feet wet, read this book and follow along with it. Determine whether you're trying to do an HAProxy for a web service or something else and concentrate specifically on those pieces. I read the whole book and enjoyed it, but you can focus on one thing if you need to. This book is short, and you can just read the whole thing to understand it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
HAProxy
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about HAProxy. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
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Manager - IT Infrastructure and Network at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Beneficial open source functionality, scalable, but support documentation lacking
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source."
- "HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets."
What is our primary use case?
We are using HAProxy for load balancing.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source.
What needs improvement?
HAProxy could improve by making the dashboards easier to use, and better reports and administration tickets.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HAProxy for approximately eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HAProxy is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of HAProxy is good.
We have approximately 10 servers utilizing this solution.
Our organization is an enterprise, but we are using HAProxy for the basic requirements and functions. We are using the basic requirements for load balancing. I would recommend this solution for small businesses. For large businesses, I would recommend Citrix and F5.
How are customer service and support?
If we have any issues generally we open a ticket through the internet, and we receive a solution. They have been responsive.
The support could improve by providing better documentation. If they had an online knowledge base it would be helpful.
I rate the support from HAProxy a three out of five.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used F5 in 2018 and it was a better solution than HAProxy, but it was expensive. In order to have the best features, you need to pay for a better solution, HAProxy is free.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment and configuration of HAProxy are not easy if we compare it with other solutions, such as F5. The full implementation took us one to two months to complete.
I rate the initial setup of HAProxy a three out of five.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation of HAProxy in-house.
We have one or two people who maintain HAProxy. They do the administration, testing, and all other maintenance. We did not require any third parties. The solution requires maintenance approximately three times annually. However, we are not using the solution extensively.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
HAProxy is a free open-source solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The main difference between HAProxy and other solutions on the market is that it is open source. Otherwise, functional-wise, it's the same.
What other advice do I have?
I rate HAProxy a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS
Open-source, cuts costs, and is straightforward to set up
Pros and Cons
- "It is scalable."
- "The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."
What is our primary use case?
The product is an open-source load balancer. We deploy it for our application as a front-end server where all the users come on that particular HAProxy server, and it is redirected to our back-end servers.
How has it helped my organization?
It helps include the reverse proxy or more security modules for enhancing security. It helps with enhancing web application security.
What is most valuable?
The solution is open-source.
HAProxy can provide protocol-level load balancing. We can use the HTTP or HTTPS load balancing, including the PCP and UDP protocol level load balancing.
The setup is straightforward.
It is scalable.
The solution is stable.
It's saved project costs and time. Since the deployment is very easy and the open-source functionality saves a huge amount of cost in terms of project deployment.
What needs improvement?
The product should have more security and dashboard functionality for monitoring so that any administrator can see the usability and track all the incoming and outgoing requests. It should have a better dashboard GUI, and more security models should be there. The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs. We need it to be more visible.
Documentation could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for around four years. We started using it in 2018.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's reliable and very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable product.
There are more than 2,000 users on the product right now.
We already scaled up with the different sets, so we previously scaled this solution.
How are customer service and support?
I did not solicit the help of any technical support.
The documentation that's available on the HAProxy is okay. There is some room for improvement in that regard.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used a traditional load balancer.
We used a TCP load balancer. The NGNIX, we use for the reverse proxy for HTTP and HTTPS protocol. However, for particular applications, we required TCP load balancer, so we used HAProxy there.
HAProxy provides the TCP and UDP port protocol-based load balancing, and NGINX is the reverse proxy, providing a great solution for web traffic, HTTP, and HTTPS.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. It's not too complex.
One single administrator can manage and deploy this product.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the deployment of the product myself.
What was our ROI?
We just replaced some of our OEM solutions with an open-source solution. We did not invest anything in that, we just save the money on some OEM products. We have to purchase some load balancers, however, we replaced this with the open-source option and they are performing well. Therefore, there is a return on investment in the sense that we replaced that traditional load balancer that we paid for.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We do not need to pay for the product as it is open-source.
There's no additional cost. We can deploy and manage on our own, and community support is available in HAProxy.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated NGINX prior to using this product.
What other advice do I have?
If you require a TCP and UDP protocol for load balancing, this is a very great solution.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Systems Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Multiple algorithms load-balance HTTP and TCP requests
Pros and Cons
- "The most important features would be the load-balancing of HTTP and TCP requests, according to multiple LB-algorithms (busyness, weighted-busyness, round robin, traffic, etc). Another important feature that we cannot live without is the username/passwd authentication for legacy systems that had none."
- "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)."
What is our primary use case?
We have the following use-cases for HAProxy:
- To load-balance dozens of Apache 2.4 Servers mod_proxy. (Internal load-balance Tomcat, Jetty, JBoss app containers, using TCP load-balancing).
- To load-balance hundreds of MySQL and PostgreSQL databases using TCP load-balancing. We manage inventory of these through Ansible automation.
- To provide a layer of security (username/passwd) authentication for legacy back-end Web apps that may not have username/passwd implemented yet. Some financial Web apps were created over 15 years ago and focused on reports, files, logs, and market share stats and were written in Perl. We also had a very old Kibana interface to visualize those logs. Such Web apps required HAProxy to tunnel the requests with un/pw authentication.
- To redirect traffic internally based on /URL to the relevant services (DNS nameserver) and as a gateway to tunnel traffic to customers who explicitly require reverse-IP authentication. The DNS nameserver was a trendsetter that we learned quickly and now cannot live without.
How has it helped my organization?
As our traffic began increasing nine years ago, we desperately needed to load-balance TCP requests (for DBs). We originally used round robin on an array[] which stored the IPs of half a dozen DBs. But with HAProxy, we didn't need to maintain such complexity. We later exploited many more features.
What is most valuable?
The most important features would be the load-balancing of HTTP and TCP requests, according to multiple LB algorithms (busyness, weighted-busyness, round robin, traffic, etc).
Another important feature that we cannot live without is the username/passwd authentication for legacy systems that had none.
What needs improvement?
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).
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have deployed over 50 instances of HAProxy over the past 15 years and never encountered any stability issues. Most HAProxy instances have continuously run for over two years until the server required a kernel upgrade.
What other advice do I have?
I have used it for over 10 years. I started using it as a Web application (Tomcat, Apache, JBoss) load-balancer when it had a few stable releases. When I first start using it, HAProxy was primarily used to load-balance HTTP requests. Since we are a B2B company that deals primarily with hotel inventory, IP authentication was a must. Therefore, our customers had single end-points to send and receive RESTful requests. To make this viable, we had to use a central server as a proxy to tunnel out the requests. We will continue to use HAProxy as our entry-point and exit-point of the system.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Software Engineering Lead at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust/codify routing decisions
Pros and Cons
- "Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
- "The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
- "Tech support is super-quick to respond, and always on target with answers specific to the current issue."
- "Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
E2E load balancing of Layer 7 and Layer 4 applications.
How has it helped my organization?
Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development.
What is most valuable?
Performance and SSL proxy/offloading capability. Compared to nginx it’s a lot cleaner and quicker.
What needs improvement?
Dynamic update API. More things should be possible to be configured during runtime.
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 ACL add/update would help with some direct routing challenges that currently require us to work around them with a map and static back-ends.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues with scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
A+++. Super-quick to respond, and always on target with answers specific to the current issue.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did use hardware loadbalancing, and still use nginx for some Layer 7 routing challenges. We switched because software defined loadbalancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development.
How was the initial setup?
The learning curve is small if one is familiar with routing/networking in general, but it takes some time to fully understand the impact of some configuration settings. The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze though.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
NTLM/F5 hardware, nginx.
What other advice do I have?
Use it for some small, non-critical systems first, get comfy with the stats, and then scale out. Codify your configuration and keep it as simple as the requirements allow.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
DevOps Tech Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We are handling millions of requests per minute in a high-availability cluster
Pros and Cons
- "Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
- "It is stable. Period. Will not fail unless you do something wrong."
- "If nbproc = 2, you will have two processes of HAProxy running. However, the stats of HAProxy will not be aggregated, meaning you don't really know the collective status in a single point of view."
How has it helped my organization?
In some environments we are handling millions of requests per minute in a high-availability HAProxy cluster. I don't know any other free software that can do that, from a performance perspective.
What is most valuable?
- Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used.
- It is stable. Period. Will not fail unless you do something wrong.
These features are why I give it a 10 out of 10.
What needs improvement?
HAProxy running in multiple cores, for example one for HTTP and another for HTTPS, requires the use of "nbproc". So if nbproc = 2, you will have two processes of HAProxy running. However, the stats of HAProxy are not aggregated, meaning you don't really know the collective status in a single point of view. Each process has its own socket and it's up to you to aggregate them, and then your stats become less accurate.
Also, having multiple HAProxy nodes in High Availability mode requires the use of clustering software such as Pacemaker and Corosync which are very complex.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, I have encountered issues, but they are always related to configuration, OS settings, network.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Yes, there have been issues with scalability, but that's because of other software configuration such as OS settings, network.
How are customer service and technical support?
We don't use commercial support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used appliances such as Alteon (Radware) which are not as good and do not support all the features required in our environment.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up an HAProxy is simple, however to run it in production you have to do a lot of tweaking.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no pricing for HAProxy. There are other HAProxy paid products (support/appliances) but we haven't used them so far.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Only lately, nginx has introduced an advanced "proxy" product. It is okay, but HAProxy is better in terms of performance and stability.
What other advice do I have?
- Use the best hardware you can (CPU and memory).
- Don't log files locally, if possible.
- Use multi process only if you have to, and don't utilize the first core.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
UNIX System Administrator at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
A containerized solution for TCP load balancing
Pros and Cons
- "It solves a problem for me where I can build files, not based on the health of the check, but rather the speed of the check."
- "The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use for this solution is to mount service for Redis.
How has it helped my organization?
It made something possible where I do load balancing on a container, without having to configure it at the firewall.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the TCP load balancing. It solves a problem for me where I can build files, not based on the health of the check, but rather the speed of the check. I found that functionality to be quite useful.
What needs improvement?
The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic. Additional logging functionality with better documentation would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
Six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'm quite happy with the frequency in which new versions and updates come out. Each release either adds some functionality or fixes some bugs, from what I've seen. I've upgraded the HAProxy probably ten times now, and have never had an issue.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have never had to use the solution's technical support.
How was the initial setup?
I found that the setup was pretty straightforward, although I had read a book on HAProxy before I started the project. I had given it some thought in terms of what it was that I wanted to do. The book that I read was good, and it was easy for me to install the product.
Only one person is required for deployment and maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are not paying for HAProxy support. We're using the free version, compiling it in a container, and using it. The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I chose this solution because I have to operate within a Docker container, and this is the only one that I could get to work.
What other advice do I have?
Once the container is set up, the time it takes to deploy is typically under a minute. That is a full-blown solution with all the plugins and images that I'm planning on using. I'm pretty happy with it.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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