HAProxy Enterprise Basic - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 AMI

We use the solution for load balancing.

The solution's implementation and troubleshooting are not easy. The solution's dashboards and reports could be improved.

I have been using HAProxy for 12 years.

We didn’t face any issues with the solution’s stability.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

HAProxy is a very good solution for small and medium sized businesses.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Since HAProxy is an open-source product, we did not receive support. However, there are some sites where we can receive support, and that support is not good.

Neutral

The solution’s initial setup is not easy.

HAProxy is an open-source solution.

F5 is HAProxy's main competitor in the market. If its implementation, dashboard, and reporting are improved, HAProxy could be better than F5.

If your team knows the product well, integrating HAProxy with IT workflow is easy. Otherwise, it is not easy. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I use the tool mostly for small and quick load-balancing tasks. Additionally, I integrate it with Docker because the integration is quite fine.

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. 

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. 

I have been using the product for six years. 

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

I've only deployed a single instance and focused on monitoring it. 

I haven't had direct experience with their technical support team. Whenever I encounter issues, I usually turn to Stack Overflow. I've found that other users often have similar problems, and I can usually find solutions there.

The tool is open-source. 

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. It is good and famous. 

The solution is used for high availability. We use it for the backend to distribute the load.

We needed a simple proxy system that is open source. HAProxy was the most used tool for any issues that we ran into. We did not want to use something that was not used much so that we could fix the issues that came up.

The solution is effective in managing our traffic. The integrations work fine. It's a load balancer. There's no need for complex integration. We hit it, and it balances the load in the servers that we assigned to it.

The product has the basic foundations of any load-balancing product. It is simple and basic. The product does not have any new technologies.

I have been using the solution for a few years.

The tool seems very stable. I have not heard of the infrastructure team having any issues with it.

The tool is scalable. We have everything we need.

The product is open source.

There are better tools, but the product does the job well. All my colleagues know the tool and have used it. I recommend the product to others. Companies that have complex environments must not choose HAProxy. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for TCP streams. I have not used the product for web servers like Apache and NGINX. I have used the product for SMTP and SMPP protocols. I also used the tool for email services and POP3 servers. HAProxy handles the area where traffic has to be forwarded from one port to another very well.

HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement.

In the future, the tool should have additional modules for different purposes.

I have experience with HAProxy.

HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable.

I have not had the opportunity to use this scalability feature of the product, but I know that it depends on the machine or the hardware on which the tool is loaded. I would say that it is a scalable product since it is a software-based solution.

I can speak about the services being used on the product since there is no user interaction required with HAProxy. I can say that my company uses more than 50 services on HAProxy.

I use DNS Made Easy.

If a Linux user who is fairly good with Linux products takes care of HAProxy's installation part, it can be done easily.

It is possible to deploy the product within one to three hours with a fair amount of knowledge.

The product's deployment process is straightforward, as it can be easily managed with the help of HAProxy's document, which is available on its website. Users should be familiar with some Linux commands.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

HAProxy is similar to engine NGINX, especially if you have a small company since you need only one or two people to take care of the deployment process. If you have a big enterprise, five to ten people are required to take care of the deployment phase.

HAProxy is preferable when the company wants a load balancer to manage the traffic and doesn't want to spend on a high-end load balancer. The product helps save costs for the company.

I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution.

I have used load balancing on the TCP layer. I have not used the product for areas like HTTP and HTTPS. I have not used the product for web or API applications. I have only used the product for the TCP part.

HAProxy improved our company's applications' availability. I had a use case in my company where we had to connect to one of my voice servers from a back-end proxy for which I had used HAProxy. HAProxy helped me when I had to distribute the traffic between all the voice servers from a single application in my company.

HAProxy's most valuable feature for network traffic management stems from the functionalities attached to the area revolving around TCP load balancers since it has helped me achieve excellent results.

To those who plan to use the product, I would say that they need to consider including the HTTP proxy part product, similar to the offerings made by NGINX. The product's potential users can introduce a lot of modules, which can help HAProxy when compared with NGINX.

I did not face any challenges with the integration capabilities of the product. My organizational objectives were achievable with HAProxy.

Considering the tool's TCP part, I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.

The main use cases are for load balancing and limiting traffic. It is utilized as a front-end server for balancing HTTP traffic, as well as for balancing traffic between application servers and database servers like Redis  and Elasticsearch. HAProxy  is employed for both HTTP and TCP load balancing purposes, ensuring optimal resource utilization and preventing overloading of any single server. 

When dealing with scenarios that require splitting or monitoring Redis  clusters with external masters and two slaves, HAProxy  becomes essential. This is because HAProxy can significantly reduce delays in Redis communication when switching roles between servers. This reduction in delay improves application load time and prevents unnecessary downtime during server switchovers. It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions.

There is room for improvement in HAProxy's dynamic configuration. Currently, dynamic changes are lost when reloading the service, and it would be beneficial if dynamic configuration changes could be applied without losing the configuration or reloading the service, ensuring backups and preserving the static configuration.

I have been using it for six years.

I would rate its stability capabilities nine out of ten.

It provides impressive scalability. I would rate it ten out of ten.

In a specific situation where a question was posted on a forum, the issue was successfully resolved within a day or the following day. I would rate their customer support services nine out of ten.

Positive

We worked with NGINX, but these two solutions are not entirely comparable as they serve different primary purposes. NGINX functions both as a web server and a reverse proxy server, while HAProxy is primarily a load-balancing proxy. They both have load-balancing capabilities, but their main focus and functionalities are distinct.

The initial setup can be challenging. I would rate it six out of ten.

For simpler cases, the deployment process can take around one hour. For more complex scenarios, it can extend up to one week. 

We are using HAProxy as an open-source.

NGINX is easier to configure and is well-suited for load balancing against an application server. However, HAProxy is more versatile and can be fine-tuned for various scenarios, particularly in load-balancing multiple application servers. In terms of deployment, HAProxy is easy to integrate into a green-blue deployment approach. It allows for simpler configuration and sending commands to its sockets.

Based on customer stability and varying use cases, I recommend choosing this solution. I would rate it nine out of ten.