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HAProxy vs HashiCorp Consul comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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

HAProxy
Ranking in Service Mesh
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (19th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (24th), Bot Management (12th)
HashiCorp Consul
Ranking in Service Mesh
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Service Mesh category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 14.7%, up from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HashiCorp Consul is 5.7%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Service Mesh Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HAProxy14.7%
HashiCorp Consul5.7%
Other79.6%
Service Mesh
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Phanindra Sangers - PeerSpot reviewer
Has an efficient key vault feature, but its integration capabilities need enhancement
I recommend HashiCorp Consul for beginners. It is a stable tool. The key-vault storage feature has significantly enhanced our configuration management process. We have maintained the secret software applications in the vault and retrieved the information from Kv. I rate the product a seven out of ten. It is good open-source software to be managed within the production.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The support for all major Linux distros makes running and testing a breeze."
"Scalable and inexpensive."
"Tech support is super-quick to respond, and always on target with answers specific to the current issue."
"I am also able to make configuration changes during the day, in production, with no worries of problems and/or downtime occurring."
"The features I find valuable in this solution are session control which automatically disconnects users that forget to log off, and the ability to write rules to either allow or block certain file requests."
"The ability to handle a sequence of front- and back-ends gives the user the opportunity to send traffic through different services."
"​​Reliability. HAProxy is the most reliable product I have ever used."
"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."
"The documentation is good."
"The product's most valuable features are support for Service Mesh TLS and canary deployment."
"HashiCorp Consul's most valuable feature is the automation of many processes, which limits the errors from user interaction."
 

Cons

"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."
"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."
"The configuration syntax is powerful yet can become overwhelming for newcomers; a more beginner-friendly interface or a native GUI without relying on third-party tools would ease the onboarding process."
"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 only area that I can see needing improvement is the management interface, since it is pretty much all through the CLI or configuration. A GUI/web interface could be helpful for users who are not as experienced in the Linux shell. However, HAProxy does have another product that we evaluated called ALOHA, which has a web front-end, but we found it did not meet our needs."
"Pricing, monitoring, and reports can be improved."
"The reconfigurability in terms of the tooling could be improved and maybe an editor plugin can be added."
"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 command line of HashiCorp Consul could be more intuitive to make it easier to use."
"Health check outputs are delayed sometimes."
"They could improve issues related to triggering generic deployments for the platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is free of cost."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"Test/lab virtual machines can be installed without a licence. They can't be used for performance testing but otherwise behave like production nodes."
"HAProxy is free in the initial offer. However, pricing can be improved."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"Very good value for the money. One of the simplest licensing schemes in this category of products."
"In case of budget constraints, we opt for the product's business support licenses and use an open-source version"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

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 HashiCorp Consul?
The product's most valuable features are support for Service Mesh TLS and canary deployment.
What needs improvement with HashiCorp Consul?
They could improve issues related to triggering generic deployments for the platform. We have raised multiple support cases. They could enhance the integration approach with Service Mesh tools. Add...
What advice do you have for others considering HashiCorp Consul?
I recommend HashiCorp Consul for beginners. It is a stable tool. The key-vault storage feature has significantly enhanced our configuration management process. We have maintained the secret softwar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. HashiCorp Consul and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.