To be honest I'd sat Kong is slightly harder to set up as it wants a database (PostgeSQL or Cassandra) but offers more functionality out of the box. HAProxy is

To be honest I'd sat Kong is slightly harder to set up as it wants a database (PostgeSQL or Cassandra) but offers more functionality out of the box. HAProxy is more focused on being … well a proxy for example it can handle straight TCP too. Its like the PostgreSQL vs ${NoSQL de jour}. HAProxy works fine to great as a default choice unless you've some requirement that makes Kong more attractive.