HAProxy vs Hetzner Load Balancer
A detailed comparison to help you choose between HAProxy and Hetzner Load Balancer.
Quick Verdict
4.5/5
HAProxy
0 reviews
3.9/5
Hetzner Load Balancer
0 reviews
HAProxy is rated higher (4.5 vs 3.9). HAProxy is a free, open source, high-performance TCP/HTTP load balancer. Handles 100,000+ concurrent connections. Used by Reddit, Tumblr, and AWS. Known for reliability over many years. Hetzner's managed load balancer distributes TCP and HTTP(S) traffic across Hetzner Cloud and dedicated root server targets, with configurable health checks, SSL termination and sticky sessions. From €7.49/month, hourly billed.
HAProxy The reliable open source load balancer | Hetzner Load Balancer Managed load balancing with Layer 4/7 support and auto-scaling integration | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.5 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.9 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | free | paid |
| Starting price | Free✓ | From $7.49/mo |
| Best for | Teams running their own infrastructure who want a proven, free, high-performance TCP/HTTP load balancer and are comfortable with configuration files | Teams already running Hetzner Cloud or Hetzner dedicated servers who need a cheap, managed, well-documented entry point with TLS termination and health checks. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | — |
| RAM | — | — |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | — | 20 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | — | 6 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | Falkenstein (DE)Nuremberg (DE)Helsinki (FI)Ashburn, VA (US)Hillsboro, OR (US)Singapore (SG) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | managed optioneu datacenterus datacenter |
| Visit HAProxy → | Visit Hetzner Load Balancer → | |
HAProxy
Pros
- + Free and open source — no metering, no feature paywall
- + 25 years of production use at very large scale
- + Strong documented performance with lean memory use
- + Transparent LTS lifecycle with published end-of-life dates
- + Layer 4 and 7, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, gRPC, Lua and a REST API
Cons
- - File-based configuration only — no GUI in the community edition
- - No support or SLA unless you buy HAProxy Enterprise
- - Advanced security (WAF, bot management) is an enterprise add-on or DIY
- - You bring the infrastructure — no managed service in the free tier
- - Linux-first; other platforms are second-class
Hetzner Load Balancer
Pros
- + Cheap for a managed load balancer: LB11 at €7.49/month with 20 TB EU included traffic and a Primary IPv4 included
- + Targets both Hetzner Cloud servers and dedicated root servers over public or private IPv4
- + Solid HTTP feature set: TLS termination with managed certificates, sticky sessions, HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect, proxy protocol
- + Per-service health checks (HTTP/HTTPS/TCP) with configurable interval, timeout, retries and expected responses
- + Hourly billing with monthly cap, six locations across four network zones, first-class API/Terraform/Kubernetes integration
Cons
- - Only Round Robin and Least Connections — no IP-hash, weighting, or L7 path-based routing rules
- - No request logging at all; no WAF or bot management; no built-in autoscaling
- - HTTPS services forward plain HTTP to targets; end-to-end TLS requires a TCP service and loses HTTP features
- - Hetzner targets only (no multi-cloud or on-prem backends); load balancers are bound to a single location
- - No product-level SLA or credits and no published throughput figures per plan
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