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Envoy vs HAProxy comparison

 

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (6th), Bot Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of Envoy is 14.3%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HAProxy is 11.7%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HAProxy11.7%
Envoy14.3%
Other74.0%
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."
"The main difference between HAProxy and other solutions on the market is that it is open source."
"The licensing fee for the entire WAF solution is very affordable with Loadbalancer.org, and there are no separate charges for HAProxy and WAF."
"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."
"Once the container is set up, the time it takes to deploy is typically under a minute, which gives me a full-blown solution with all the plugins and images that I am planning on using."
"It is a crucial tool in ensuring smooth service provision without any interruptions."
"The most valuable feature of HAProxy is that its open source."
"HAProxy is definitely a dependable choice; the only thing that needs some attention is the initial learning curve, and when you get past that, it is a great tool to use and we are very happy with it."
"Compared to the others in the market, such as Citrix and F5, the cost per performance for Aloha appliances is extremely low, and in our experience, the performance and reliability is better."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples."
"Maybe HAProxy could be more modular."
"I would like to evaluate load-balancing algorithms other than round robin and SSL offloading. Also, it would be helpful if I could logically divide the HAProxy load-balancing into multiple entities so that I would install one HA Proxy LB application which could be used for different Web servers for different applications. I am not sure if these features are available."
"The basic clustering is not usable in our very specific setup."
"I would like to see a two (or more) native cluster support without third parties or DNS manipulations."
"The configuration should be more friendly, perhaps with a Web interface. For example, I work with the ClusterControl product for Severalnines, and we have a Web interface to deploy the HAProxy load-balancer."
"A better GUI would be nice."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"The deployment and configuration of HAProxy are not easy if we compare it with other solutions, such as F5."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"The price is well worth it. HAProxy Enterprise Edition paid for itself within months, simply due to the resiliency it brings. It was a bit more expensive than we were originally interested in paying, but we are thankful we chose to go with HAProxy."
"The product is open source."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"The licensing fee for the solution is $690 per unit annually."
"It is free of cost."
"The tool is open-source."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Envoy?
The tool needs to incorporate better documentation and more example samples.
What is your primary use case for Envoy?
I used the solution to build a project's proxy server and load balancer.
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?
HAProxy already provides many of the features that other solutions in the market are providing, such as Nginx, so I do not see much room for improvement.
 

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, HAProxy, HashiCorp and others in Service Mesh. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.