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This is just a comparison of metrics monitoring capable between HAproxy vs. nginx. Nothing related to load balancing capability.
by a012 9y ago
This is just a comparison of metrics monitoring capable between HAproxy vs. nginx. Nothing related to load balancing capability.
- user5994461 9y agoYes, they have the same features mostly. The difference is that HAProxy has a monitoring page to see what is configured and where connections are going. Nginx is a black box unless you pay them ~ $2000 for the pro edition. Monitoring is feature #1 of a load balancer.
- cjsuk 9y agoCouldn't agree more. Even apache status module was better than nginx. haproxy it is next time.
- vacri 9y agoI would have thought that effective load balancing would be feature #1 of a load balancer...
- qaq 9y agoand how will your determine effectiveness without metrics?
- fredsted 9y agoConsidering "it works" as a feature sets the bar really low.
- vacri 9y agoLucky I didn't say that, eh? A scooter can transport cargo. A truck can transport cargo effectively.
- blowski 9y agoGiven two load balancers, one can load balance 20K requests per second but has good monitoring, the other can load balance 500K requests per second but has bad monitoring. Which is the better load balancer? Note that I'm not implying these figures are true of either HAProxy or nginx, just pointing out that the OP is probably correct that the number one feature of a load balancer is its ability to load balance. Good monitoring makes it easier to use, though.
- gedrap 9y agoAll is good when it's working well, but when something's not right... well, you really wish that you had that monitoring. The truth is that most load balancing solutions are capable of handling _a lot_ of traffic, way way more than the majority of the people need. So performance is not a huge concern, typically. However, if you are at the level where it does actually matter and want to use nginx, chances are, you'll have no problem paying for the premium version.
- user5994461 9y agoThey both have the same performance for HTTP(S) traffic, both software are the same in their algorithms and performance critical aspects. The limit is set by the harware, they will either saturate the NIC or the CPU. HAProxy has a status page to see how many requests are processed and going where. nginx doesn't.
- StreamBright 9y agoYou have two airplanes, one can carry 100 passengers and you can see where you are flying; the other can carry 1000 but you are flying blind. Monitoring is essential to any infrastructure, regardless of its scale.
- vacri 9y ago> the other can carry 1000 but you are flying blind. This is a bad analogy, because 'flying blind' in a plane means you can't use it effectively. Being able to see out of a plane isn't a 'bonus'; it can't be used without this feature. Whereas plenty of people can and do use a load-balancer without heavy monitoring. (not to mention that there are strong moves towards self-driving transportation at the moment) The analogy also doesn't work because a loadbalancer that can handle 1000 units is going to have far fewer problems that are in need of diagnosis than one whose limit is 100 units; when the traffic level is between 100 and 1000. When the traffic is at 100, then yes, you're going to want monitoring on the 100-unit LB, because you're trying to squeeze extra performance out of it. Whereas the 1000-unit one isn't even sweating at that point.
- busterarm 9y agoA monitoring page but no (usable) logs. we loadbalance nginx clusters with haproxy and we use filebeat & metricbeat to feed logs to an ELK stack. That monitoring page is useless to us now and your logging & monitoring should be centralized to one place anyway.
- user5994461 9y agocentralized logging is a separate concern to centralized monitoring, which is also a separate concern to having a status page.
- digitalbase 9y agoI was expecting this post to be some kind of benchmark/comparison between the two. A better title would be: "Don't use nginx unless you're paying for it".