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Envoy vs HAProxy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Envoy
Ranking in Service Mesh
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HAProxy
Ranking in Service Mesh
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (6th), Bot Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of Envoy is 13.0%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 11.0%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HAProxy11.0%
Envoy13.0%
Other76.0%
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Full-stack Developer at ImageVision.ai
A simple solution that works as a proxy server and load balancer
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik. The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.  I haven't contacted the tool's support team.  I chose Envoy for the POC…
Shrinivas Devarkonda - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of DevOps at TripFactory
Handles high traffic efficiently and simplifies complex routing with rule-based logic
I think HAProxy is good as it stands now, but I believe there could be improvements. gRPC has recently been implemented, which is great, along with TLS 1.2 and 1.3 support, and HTTP 2.0 is also available. However, I'm unsure about the benchmark of those HTTP 2.0 requests on HAProxy. If there were any other protocol with better performance than HTTP 2.0, or perhaps mTLS and other similar features, including that in HAProxy would be really great. For improvements, I think that during setup and configuration, the steps provided are neat and clear. Anyone can easily install and configure it. There are many kernel tuning parameters also available, which is great. For specific improvement, in terms of logging, I think printing the full object of the request may help, or if there's a way to reference two requests, it would be beneficial to find a complete session history from a logged-in customer, as it would help analyze customer and user analytics.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I found Envoy simple to use compared to alternatives like Traefik."
"We don't have a problem with the user interface. it's good."
"We were able to use HAProxy for round robin with our databases, or for a centralized TCP connection in one host."
"HAProxy has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to manage configurations; I put configuration files on the Ceph storage shared across the whole cluster, allowing me to write my configuration, change it easily in one place, and reload it."
"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."
"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."
"With each new release, I find very useful features and love each addition."
"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."
"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."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples."
"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."
"The only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration."
"Documentation could be improved."
"A better GUI would be nice."
"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup. The clustering is mainly a configuration replication and is great in a case of active-passive usage. In the case of an active-active (or with more than two nodes) where the configuration is not fully identical, it cannot be used as-is."
"The documentation is extremely detailed, but I think it could be restructured so it isn't so daunting for beginners."
"They should introduce one feature that I know many people, including me, are waiting for: HAProxy should have provide hot-swipe for back-end servers. Also, they need a more detailed GUI for monitoring and configuration."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."
"We use NGINX as well. However, because the health checks are a paid feature, I like to avoid it whenever possible​."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"We are using HAProxy as an open-source."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HAProxy?
Since we used the open-source version, we were not concerned about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with HAProxy?
For the limited use that I have of HAProxy, I don't have any points to improve. I think I need more time with this tool, or perhaps I simply don't have areas that need to get better. I don't have a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbnb, Booking.com, Cookpad, Digital Ocean, Ebay, F5, Google, GO-JEK, Grubhub, IBM, Medium, Microsoft, Netflix, Pinterest, Salesforce.com, Snapchat, Stripe, Square, Tencent, Twilio, Uber, Verizon, VMware, Vsco, Yahoo Japan, Yelp
Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Find out what your peers are saying about Isito, Traefik Labs, HAProxy and others in Service Mesh. Updated: August 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.