AWS Network Load Balancer vs HAProxy

Developers should use AWS Network Load Balancer when building high-performance, low-latency applications that require handling of TCP/UDP traffic, such as gaming servers, IoT applications, or real-time streaming services meets developers should learn haproxy when building scalable web applications that require high availability and efficient traffic management, such as in microservices architectures or high-traffic websites. Here's our take.

AWS Network Load Balancer

Nice Pick

Developers should use AWS Network Load Balancer when building high-performance, low-latency applications that require handling of TCP/UDP traffic, such as gaming servers, IoT applications, or real-time streaming services

Pros

• It is particularly useful for scenarios needing static IP addresses, preserving source IP addresses for backend processing, or integrating with other AWS services like AWS Global Accelerator for improved global performance
• Related to: aws-elastic-load-balancing, aws-application-load-balancer

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

HAProxy

Developers should learn HAProxy when building scalable web applications that require high availability and efficient traffic management, such as in microservices architectures or high-traffic websites

Pros

• It is particularly useful for load balancing HTTP/HTTPS traffic, handling failover scenarios, and implementing reverse proxy functionality to offload tasks like SSL encryption from application servers
• Related to: load-balancing, reverse-proxy

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. AWS Network Load Balancer is a platform while HAProxy is a tool. We picked AWS Network Load Balancer based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

AWS Network Load Balancer wins

Based on overall popularity. AWS Network Load Balancer is more widely used, but HAProxy excels in its own space.