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HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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 Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Service Mesh (2nd)
Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
9th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of HAProxy is 12.3%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.3%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Kaushlendra Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for load balancing, but its dashboard and reporting could be improved
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…
PeterForster - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support
My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability is number one."
"HAProxy's TCP load balancer is excellent and super stable."
"It improves our scalability and responsiveness services to meet our demanding customer requirements."
"​It has allowed us to evenly distribute the load across a number of servers, and check their health and automatically react to errors."
"Software defined load balancing allows us to dynamically adjust and codify routing decisions. This speeds up development."
"Tech support is super-quick to respond, and always on target with answers specific to the current issue."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it works for my use case of application load balancing. I'm using it for PeerSense, and it's easy enough for PeerSense."
"We use it as a load balancer for our application servers."
"The security features are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The old process of manually having to redirect Outlook Web Access traffic and Email traffic to a second server is a thing of the past."
"The user interface is very easy to work with."
"The base feature of Kemp LoadMaster load balancing ticks all the boxes but the most valuable features would be the security features Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF)."
"The most valuable feature that I found is the load balancing feature, it is the core function of the product."
"I like the way this solution handles multiple SSLs in different domains while still load balancing."
"Managing and maintaining multiple servers is done in a single place."
"The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"The GUI should be more responsive and show the detailed output of logs."
"The logging functionality could use improvement, as it is a little cryptic."
"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."
"HAProxy is very weak in the logging and monitoring part and requires improvement."
"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 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."
"Several elements of the GUI need work. For example, if you have many content switches, it’s difficult to find the ones you need. And where is the search feature?"
"There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features."
"There is room for improvement in the stability of the solution."
"The ability to see live traffic is not great and can be improved."
"I want to have the ability to pull a particular server. The DevOps portion was challenging for me, like if I needed to redirect from one IP to another URL. I needed to look that up, and the knowledge base is not well organized. When I look for information about Kemp on the Internet, I don't find many articles or something like that."
"The product could be improved by making the SSL Offloading easier."
"To make it a perfect ten out of ten it would need better connection logging. If there is an active connection, that there is better logging. It should also have better management monitoring tools."
"So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to pricing HAProxy is free."
"HAProxy is a free open-source solution."
"I think that the pricing is very fair, I would definitely recommend buying the Enterprise license."
"The only cost is for the image manager, who is responsible for uploading the image, and that is trivial."
"I use the open-source version of the product. I don't have experience with the licensed version of the solution."
"HAProxy is free open-source software."
"If you don't have expertise then go with the licensed version. Otherwise, open-source is the best solution."
"The product is open source."
"Licensing is yearly and I am going to guess that it is CAN $2000.00."
"Less expensive than Citrix."
"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."
"Pricing for the perpetual licensing was fair to us for the features and ease of use we received."
"It is well-priced and licensing is very flexible."
"Download Kemp's VLM trial and take it for a test drive; you will be impressed."
"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."
"The product definitely provides what the organization needs and its cost is reasonable considering the value it brings."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Kemp LoadMaster?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes a lot of time to provide resolutions for issues. Also, I could see more capabil...
 

Also Known As

HAProxy Community Edition, HAProxy Enterprise Edition, HAPEE
LoadMaster Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Booking.com, GitHub, Reddit, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Vimeo, Yelp
Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about HAProxy vs. Kemp LoadMaster and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.