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HAProxy is a unique piece of software. I’ve had the privilege to interact directly with Willy (the main developer for many years, still the project lead) on th

HAProxy is a unique piece of software. I’ve had the privilege to interact directly with Willy (the main developer for many years, still the project lead) on the mailing list, in person at the conference, and even though I’ve never paid a dime, the interaction has been the best open-source experience I’ve ever had. Willy routinely writes multi-paragraph responses on the mailing list to my hair-brained suggestions for how HAProxy could be better for my company’s rather unique needs. I often feel bad that I cannot do more for the project, because it is so well thought-through and delivered. The software cuts no corners and delivers at fractions of the TCO of competition (limited by my opinion and experience, of course). For instance, just last week, I spun a rate limiting solution in half a morning, that mitigated some annoying proxy bots instantly (and is flexible enough to automatically block offenders without affecting legitimate users). The stats, DNS support, and integrations and many other featured are second to none among other load balancers. It’s an impressive and refreshing project. We could all learn something from HAProxy and the team.

topspin 6y ago
I asked for a feature on GitHub (fetching SHA-2 fingerprint of client certificates, as opposed to SHA-1) and it was handled in one day. That was the feature that pulled me away from nginx (which still only provides SHA-1 via $ssl_client_fingerprint btw.)
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  Sounds like par for the course. I compiled it from source on our edge servers for a long time (as opposed to packaged), simply so I could apply these real time patches as needed.
- TimWolla 6y ago
  Oh hi! That was me [1]. I'm a community contributor, but I'm equally impressed by the speed patches get merged on the mailing list. [1] https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/123#issuecomment-502632102 https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/123#issuecomment-5...
apple4ever 6y ago
Why do you choose HAProxy over Ngxinx? It's sounds like you love it, and I have had no experience with HAProxy. So I'm curious about the reasons you love it. (Just to be clear this is a sincere question to learn since tone is hard to express clearly with text.)
- TimWolla 6y ago
  I gave my reasoning back on the HAProxy 2.0 announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20198232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20198232
  - apple4ever 6y ago
    Perfect thank you! This is why I love HN. I ask a good question and get a lot of great feedback!
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  As a load balancer, NGINX is subpar in almost every feature comparison, especially at the open-source (free to use) tier. HAProxy gives you the following that are musts for load balancing (in my opinion), that NGINX does not, at least not easily: 1) A HTML (or JSON) stats page that precisely and completely tells you what’s going on at a high-level. A visit to this during outages is often all that’s required. 2) Support for DNS (and other) discovery mechanisms in a flexible way. (This is paid in NGINX) 3) Active health checks (also paid in NGINX) 4) The ACL system, while somewhat difficult to learn, is amazingly powerful. 5) Flexible L7 retries are brilliant. We replaced NGINX with HAProxy and eliminated a whole class of bugs, micro-outages, and annoyances just by following HAProxy’s best practices. I still use NGINX when I need a static web file server, though. :)
  - apple4ever 6y ago
    Wow that is very helpful. I am going to take a look now!
  - raghava 6y ago
    HAProxy - traffic shaping { load-balancing, req-throttling, health-checks } nginx - { static file serving, good proxy for python/ruby apps, req manipulation with advanced scripting capabilities via lua engine through open-resty [mirroring, WAF(naxsi), url rewriting etc] } A combo of haproxy + nginx would always bring good delight for many practitioners.
thayne 6y ago
Totally agree. HAproxy is an incredible piece of software. It is both extremely fast, and very versatile, which is a rare combination. The 2.2 release checks off almost every item on my haproxy wishlist, which makes me very happy. To all the developers of such a great piece of software, I offer you my gratitude.

topspin 6y ago

I asked for a feature on GitHub (fetching SHA-2 fingerprint of client certificates, as opposed to SHA-1) and it was handled in one day. That was the feature that pulled me away from nginx (which still only provides SHA-1 via $ssl_client_fingerprint btw.)

lukeqsee 6y ago
Sounds like par for the course. I compiled it from source on our edge servers for a long time (as opposed to packaged), simply so I could apply these real time patches as needed.
TimWolla 6y ago
Oh hi! That was me [1]. I'm a community contributor, but I'm equally impressed by the speed patches get merged on the mailing list. [1] https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/123#issuecomment-502632102 https://github.com/haproxy/haproxy/issues/123#issuecomment-5...

apple4ever 6y ago

Why do you choose HAProxy over Ngxinx? It's sounds like you love it, and I have had no experience with HAProxy. So I'm curious about the reasons you love it. (Just to be clear this is a sincere question to learn since tone is hard to express clearly with text.)

TimWolla 6y ago
I gave my reasoning back on the HAProxy 2.0 announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20198232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20198232
- apple4ever 6y ago
  Perfect thank you! This is why I love HN. I ask a good question and get a lot of great feedback!
lukeqsee 6y ago
As a load balancer, NGINX is subpar in almost every feature comparison, especially at the open-source (free to use) tier. HAProxy gives you the following that are musts for load balancing (in my opinion), that NGINX does not, at least not easily: 1) A HTML (or JSON) stats page that precisely and completely tells you what’s going on at a high-level. A visit to this during outages is often all that’s required. 2) Support for DNS (and other) discovery mechanisms in a flexible way. (This is paid in NGINX) 3) Active health checks (also paid in NGINX) 4) The ACL system, while somewhat difficult to learn, is amazingly powerful. 5) Flexible L7 retries are brilliant. We replaced NGINX with HAProxy and eliminated a whole class of bugs, micro-outages, and annoyances just by following HAProxy’s best practices. I still use NGINX when I need a static web file server, though. :)
- apple4ever 6y ago
  Wow that is very helpful. I am going to take a look now!
- raghava 6y ago
  HAProxy - traffic shaping { load-balancing, req-throttling, health-checks } nginx - { static file serving, good proxy for python/ruby apps, req manipulation with advanced scripting capabilities via lua engine through open-resty [mirroring, WAF(naxsi), url rewriting etc] } A combo of haproxy + nginx would always bring good delight for many practitioners.

thayne 6y ago

Totally agree. HAproxy is an incredible piece of software. It is both extremely fast, and very versatile, which is a rare combination. The 2.2 release checks off almost every item on my haproxy wishlist, which makes me very happy. To all the developers of such a great piece of software, I offer you my gratitude.