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HAProxy vs Kong: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this Markdown code, we will be discussing the key differences between HAProxy and Kong. Both HAProxy and Kong are popular open-source solutions for load balancing and API management, but they have distinct features that set them apart.

  1. Scalability: HAProxy is primarily designed for load balancing and is known for its high performance and scalability. It can handle a large number of concurrent connections and distribute traffic efficiently across multiple backend servers. On the other hand, Kong includes not only load balancing but also API gateway functionality, making it more suitable for managing API traffic and handling complex API-related tasks.

  2. Ease of Configuration: HAProxy uses a declarative configuration file to specify its behavior. It offers a straightforward and intuitive configuration syntax, making it relatively easy to set up and configure. Kong, on the other hand, provides a more dynamic and flexible configuration approach through its declarative configuration as code. It allows users to configure and manage their API gateway using a RESTful API, simplifying the process of updating and modifying configurations.

  3. API Management Features: Kong differentiates itself by providing comprehensive API management features on top of its load balancing capabilities. It offers features such as authentication, rate limiting, caching, logging, and monitoring, which are essential for building and managing APIs securely and efficiently. HAProxy, on the other hand, focuses primarily on load balancing, although it does offer some basic health checking and monitoring options.

  4. Plugins and Extensions: Kong has a rich ecosystem of plugins and extensions that enhance its functionality and extend its capabilities. These plugins allow users to add additional functionality to their API gateway, such as OAuth2 authentication, JWT validation, and request/response transformations. HAProxy, while it does have some limited extensibility through Lua scripting, lacks the extensive plugin ecosystem that is available with Kong.

  5. Community and Support: HAProxy has been in existence for a longer time and has a well-established and active community. This community provides ongoing support, continuous development, and regular updates for HAProxy. Kong, being a more recent addition, also has an active community but may not be as mature as HAProxy's community. The level of community support and availability of resources may differ between the two solutions.

  6. Deployment Options: HAProxy can be deployed as a standalone load balancer or as part of a larger infrastructure stack. It can be used in on-premises setups, in the cloud, or within containerized environments. Kong, on the other hand, is typically deployed as an API gateway layer, offering additional features on top of load balancing. It can be deployed as a standalone solution or integrated with existing infrastructure and microservices.

In Summary, HAProxy and Kong differ in terms of their primary focus, scalability, configuration approach, API management features, extensibility through plugins, community support, and deployment options. Overall, HAProxy is primarily focused on load balancing performance, while Kong combines load balancing with advanced API management capabilities.

Decisions about HAProxy and Kong
Prateek Mittal
Fullstack Engineer| Ruby | React JS | gRPC at Ex Bookmyshow | Furlenco | Shopmatic · | 4 upvotes · 286.5K views

Istio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn-keyIstio based on powerful Envoy whereas Kong based on Nginx. Istio is K8S native as well it's actively developed when k8s was successfully accepted with production-ready apps whereas Kong slowly migrated to start leveraging K8s. Istio has an inbuilt turn key solution with Rancher whereas Kong completely lacks here. Traffic distribution in Istio can be done via canary, a/b, shadowing, HTTP headers, ACL, whitelist whereas in Kong it's limited to canary, ACL, blue-green, proxy caching. Istio has amazing community support which is visible via Github stars or releases when comparing both.

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Pros of HAProxy
Pros of Kong
  • 131
    Load balancer
  • 102
    High performance
  • 69
    Very fast
  • 58
    Proxying for tcp and http
  • 55
    SSL termination
  • 31
    Open source
  • 27
    Reliable
  • 20
    Free
  • 18
    Well-Documented
  • 12
    Very popular
  • 7
    Runs health checks on backends
  • 7
    Suited for very high traffic web sites
  • 6
    Scalable
  • 5
    Ready to Docker
  • 4
    Powers many world's most visited sites
  • 3
    Simple
  • 2
    Work with NTLM
  • 2
    Ssl offloading
  • 1
    Available as a plugin for OPNsense
  • 37
    Easy to maintain
  • 32
    Easy to install
  • 26
    Flexible
  • 21
    Great performance
  • 7
    Api blueprint
  • 4
    Custom Plugins
  • 3
    Kubernetes-native
  • 2
    Security
  • 2
    Has a good plugin infrastructure
  • 2
    Agnostic
  • 1
    Load balancing
  • 1
    Documentation is clear
  • 1
    Very customizable

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Cons of HAProxy
Cons of Kong
  • 6
    Becomes your single point of failure
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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is HAProxy?

    HAProxy (High Availability Proxy) is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications.

    What is Kong?

    Kong is a scalable, open source API Layer (also known as an API Gateway, or API Middleware). Kong controls layer 4 and 7 traffic and is extended through Plugins, which provide extra functionality and services beyond the core platform.

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    What companies use HAProxy?
    What companies use Kong?
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    What tools integrate with HAProxy?
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    What are some alternatives to HAProxy and Kong?
    NGINX
    nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.
    Traefik
    A modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components and configures itself automatically and dynamically.
    Envoy
    Originally built at Lyft, Envoy is a high performance C++ distributed proxy designed for single services and applications, as well as a communication bus and “universal data plane” designed for large microservice “service mesh” architectures.
    Squid
    Squid reduces bandwidth and improves response times by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages. Squid has extensive access controls and makes a great server accelerator. It runs on most available operating systems, including Windows and is licensed under the GNU GPL.
    Varnish
    Varnish Cache is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents. Varnish Cache is really, really fast. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 - 1000x, depending on your architecture.
    See all alternatives