Load balancers
Asked as “load balancer”, and as “application delivery controller”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, fourteen models each. Added to the November 2026 Edition.
Standing · first-choice share
32%
Contested · NGINX 16%
32HAProxy16NGINX12Kemp LoadMaster40others
32% of first choices, contested.
Since October 2026▲+3Since October 2026: 29% → 32%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.HAProxy held the lead, +3 points on 29%, inside the 11-point floor.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small business
HAProxy19%Contested▼−1Since October 2026: 20% → 19%, −1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.Standing →Mid-marketHAProxy32%Contested▲+3Since October 2026: 29% → 32%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.This pageEnterpriseF5 BIG-IP23%Contested▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.Standing →
HAProxy19%Contested▼−1Since October 2026: 20% → 19%, −1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.Standing →Mid-marketHAProxy32%Contested▲+3Since October 2026: 29% → 32%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.This pageEnterpriseF5 BIG-IP23%Contested▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.Standing →The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince October 2026
01HAProxy32%8%61endorsed leader▲+3Since October 2026: 29% → 32%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.29% → 32%
HAProxy32%8%61endorsed leader▲+3Since October 2026: 29% → 32%, +3 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.29% → 32%02
NGINX16%7%57accepted challenger▲+1Since October 2026: 15% → 16%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.15% → 16%
NGINX16%7%57accepted challenger▲+1Since October 2026: 15% → 16%, +1 point. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.15% → 16%03
Kemp LoadMaster12%0%19accepted challenger▲+12Since October 2026: 0% → 12%, +12 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.0% → 12%
Kemp LoadMaster12%0%19accepted challenger▲+12Since October 2026: 0% → 12%, +12 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.0% → 12%04Progress Kemp LoadMaster12%9%11accepted challenger▼−15Since October 2026: 27% → 12%, −15 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.27% → 12%
05AWS Elastic Load Balancing4%9%34accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 6% → 4%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.6% → 4%
06
A10 Thunder ADC4%0%10accepted challenger▲+4Since October 2026: 0% → 4%, +4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 4%
A10 Thunder ADC4%0%10accepted challenger▲+4Since October 2026: 0% → 4%, +4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 4%07AWS Application Load Balancer4%14%14accepted challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 2% → 4%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.2% → 4%
08
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%0%29accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%0%29accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%09Azure Load Balancer2%10%30accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 2% → 2%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.2% → 2%
10F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager2%42%12criticized challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
11F5 BIG-IP2%49%43criticized challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
16Citrix ADC0%31%32criticized challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
15GCP Cloud Load Balancing0%9%11accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
14Google Cloud Load Balancing Lab in the set0%5%19accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
12
Traefik0%3%29accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.2% → 0%
Traefik0%3%29accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.2% → 0%13Envoy0%0%16accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one can't be told apart from repeat variation, and both are shown. Each index measures its own floor from its own repeat, over its own categories, so the floor differs from one index to the next. Both editions asked the same fourteen models. How the floor is measured
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Google Cloud Load Balancing is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice zero times of 4; the other thirteen models zero times of 52. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.
For buyers
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each
HAProxy vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingHAProxy vs A10 Thunder ADCHAProxy vs AWS Application Load BalancerHAProxy vs Cloudflare Load BalancingNGINX vs Kemp LoadMasterNGINX vs Progress Kemp LoadMasterNGINX vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingNGINX vs A10 Thunder ADCNGINX vs AWS Application Load BalancerNGINX vs Cloudflare Load BalancingKemp LoadMaster vs Progress Kemp LoadMasterKemp LoadMaster vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingKemp LoadMaster vs A10 Thunder ADCKemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerKemp LoadMaster vs Cloudflare Load BalancingProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs A10 Thunder ADCProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs Cloudflare Load BalancingAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs A10 Thunder ADCAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs AWS Application Load BalancerAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Cloudflare Load BalancingA10 Thunder ADC vs AWS Application Load BalancerA10 Thunder ADC vs Cloudflare Load BalancingAWS Application Load Balancer vs Cloudflare Load Balancing
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
010203P04
A05
06A07
08A09
F10
F11
12E13
G14
G15
C16
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01HAProxy32%
HAProxy32%02NGINX16%
NGINX16%03Kemp LoadMaster12%
Kemp LoadMaster12%04Progress Kemp LoadMaster12%
05AWS Elastic Load Balancing4%
06A10 Thunder ADC4%
A10 Thunder ADC4%07AWS Application Load Balancer4%
08Cloudflare Load Balancing2%
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%09Azure Load Balancer2%
10F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager2%
11F5 BIG-IP2%
12Traefik0%
Traefik0%13Envoy0%
14Google Cloud Load Balancing0%
15GCP Cloud Load Balancing0%
16Citrix ADC0%
What they warned about
Three of fourteen models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX, GPT-6 Luna and Muse Glimmer 30B changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
F5 BIG-IP
49%
21 of 43 labels negative · 9 of 14 models · 6 hard negative
“Critical zero-days exist in F5 BIG-IP APM, tracked as CVE-2026-94127, which allows unauthenticated remote code execution” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Citrix ADC
31%
10 of 32 labels negative · 9 of 14 models · 4 hard negative
“What I'd avoid for mid-sized B2B ... Citrix/NetScaler: More geared toward remote access and large-scale enterprise environments.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Azure Basic Load Balancer100%
5 of 5 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 5 hard negative
“Basic Load Balancer was retired on September 30, 2025... If you still have Basic Load Balancer in production you need to migrate.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager
42%
5 of 12 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid enterprise appliances such as F5 or paid HAProxy/NGINX editions unless you require advanced support” Perplexity Sonar, budget prompt
What they cite
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted.
Sites the answers cite
66 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 690 links across 180 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. 54 of the 252 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category; the method page measures whether that reading tilts an answer.
vendor site · Kemp Technologies21 answers · 64 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Loadbalancer.org19 answers · 24 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Microsoft16 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
vendor site · GitHub14 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
vendor site · G213 answers · 18 citations · 6 models
vendor site · Amazon12 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
vendor site · F511 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
publisher (Gane)10 answers · 11 citations · 5 models
10 answers · 10 citations · 6 models
9 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
9 answers · 11 citations · 6 models
vendor site · Cloudflare8 answers · 10 citations · 7 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
9 answers · 5 models
9 answers · 6 models
8 answers · 5 models
8 answers · 6 models
7 answers · 7 models
7 answers · 7 models
7 answers · 7 models
7 answers · 7 models
7 answers · 7 models
6 answers · 5 models
Search against answers
Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best load balancer”, “load balancer”, “load balancers”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
| Company and products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days | Best Google position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HAProxy haproxy.com HAProxy 32%, HAProxy Community Edition 4% | 36% | 142 | 4,400 | 424 | 18,410 | 4 | ||
| NGINX nginx.org | 16% | 152 | 33,100 | 4,362 | 38,473 | |||
| Kemp LoadMaster kemptechnologies.com | 12% | 46 | 210 | 9 | 35,090 | $127 | 23 | 3 |
| Progress Kemp LoadMaster | 12% | 50 | 2 | |||||
| AWS parent site AWS Elastic Load Balancing 4%, AWS Application Load Balancer 4% | 8% | 83 | 368,000 | 114,001 | ||||
| A10 Thunder ADC a10networks.com | 4% | 24 | 40 | 0 | 32,774 | |||
| Cloudflare parent site Cloudflare Load Balancing 2% | 2% | 69 | 550,000 | 10,897 | ||||
| Azure parent site Azure Load Balancer 2%, Azure Application Gateway 0% | 2% | 54 | 301,000 | 47,904 | ||||
| Application Load Balancer | 2% | 720 | 100 | |||||
| Network Load Balancer | 2% |
Google's top ten for the three searches hold 22 sites; 8 of them are among the sites the models cited here (aws.amazon.com, cloudflare.com, f5.com, g2.com, github.com, kemptechnologies.com, learn.microsoft.com, loadbalancer.org). The first result for “best load balancer” is g2.com.
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.ShowHide
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHideModelDirect“What is the best load balancer for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which application delivery controller would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top load balancers and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best load balancer for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a load balancer. What should we look at?”Negative“Which load balancers should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Network Load Balancerno first choiceChangedHAProxyagainst: CaddyHAProxyno first choicenothing named
Two alternatives
Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINXSeven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancer, NGINX, TraefikFive alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Google Cloud Load Balancing, Keepalived, NGINXGPT-5.4 miniAWS Application Load BalancerF5 BIG-IPChangedno first choiceHAProxy, NGINXagainst: Azureno first choiceagainst: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, HAProxy, NGINX
Three alternatives
AWS Network Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Application Load BalancerTwo alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADCFour alternatives
F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, NGINX, TraefikGemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancingagainst: F5 BIG-IP, NetScaler ADCProgress Kemp LoadMasterChangedagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IPHAProxyHAProxyAWS Elastic Load Balancingagainst: AWS Classic Load Balancer, Apache `mod_proxy_balancer`, Azure Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IP, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, Pen, Pound, legacy Cisco ACE
Six alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterFour alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXEight alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer/Application Gateway, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX, TraefikFive alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, DigitalOcean Load Balancers, Hetzner Load Balancer, NGINX Open Source, TraefikTwelve alternatives
Azure Load Balancer, Cilium, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Envoy, Fastly, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX, Progress, Traefik, VMware NSX ALB/AviPerplexity SonarProgress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: F5 BIG-IPProgress Kemp LoadMasterHeldno first choiceagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IPHAProxy Community Editionagainst: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Managerno first choiceagainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, AWS Basic Load Balancer, Gateway Load Balancer
Four alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXTwo alternatives
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, NetScaler ADCTen alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Envoy, Front Door, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, TraefikFour alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load Balancing, DigitalOcean Load Balancers, Open-source NGINXGrok 4.20HAProxyagainst: F5 BIG-IPKemp LoadMasterChangedagainst: F5 BIG-IP LTMAWS Elastic Load BalancingHAProxyagainst: A10, Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IPno first choiceagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Apache, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, NGINX, custom LVS setups
Five alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) – ALB/NLB, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterFour alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINXSix alternatives
Envoy, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, TraefikFive alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINX, TraefikSeven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Fastly, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINXMistral SmallNGINXA10 Thunder ADC, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerChangedF5 BIG-IP PlatformAWS Elastic Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: Azure Basic Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, NetScaler ADC
Five alternatives
Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADCThree alternatives
Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, Citrix ADC, HAProxy OneSeven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Application Security and Performance, F5 NGINX Ingress, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMasterTwo alternatives
Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINXDeepSeek V4 FlashHAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IPProgress Kemp LoadMasterChangedagainst: Citrix NetScaler ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, NGINXHAProxyagainst: Varnish CacheHAProxy, NGINXagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IPKemp LoadMaster, NGINXagainst: F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manageragainst: Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, Citrix NetScaler ADC, F5 BIG-IP
One alternative
NGINXTwo alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Barracuda Load Balancer ADCEight alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer/Application Gateway, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX, TraefikThree alternatives
Caddy, Cloudflare Load Balancing, TraefikThree alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, GCP Cloud Load BalancingLlama 4 MaverickNGINXno first choiceChangedno first choiceHAProxyno first choiceagainst: Azure Basic Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, NetScaler ADC
Four alternatives
Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMasterThree alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINXQwen 3.7 FlashNGINXagainst: F5 BIG-IPA10 Thunder ADCChangedno first choiceagainst: F5 BIG-IPHAProxyagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, Kemp Free Load Balancer, Round-Robin DNSHAProxy, NGINXagainst: F5 BIG-IPagainst: AWS Classic Elastic Load Balancer, Apache HTTP Server, Contour / Envoy, F5 BIG-IP Hardware Appliances, FortiGate, Pound Web Server, Traefik, Varnish Cache, pfSense
Two alternatives
Application Load Balancer, HAProxyFive alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, F5 BIG-IP, F5 NGINXFour alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, Envoy, HAProxy, NGINXTwo alternatives
NGINX, TraefikThree alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Kemp LoadMasterKimi K2Kemp LoadMasteragainst: F5 BIG-IPKemp LoadMasterHeldagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Managerno first choiceHAProxyno first choiceagainst: F5 BIG-IPagainst: AWS Classic Load Balancer, Azure Basic Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, MetalLB, NGINX
One alternative
HAProxyFour alternatives
Barracuda Load Balancer ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 NGINX, HAProxySix alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, NGINXFour alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINX, Progress Free Load Balancer, TraefikFive alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster VA, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINXGLM 4.7 FlashXProgress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IPKemp LoadMasterChangedno first choiceagainst: Istio GatewayHAProxyno first choiceagainst: Amazon Classic Load Balancer, Azure Basic Load Balancer, Progress Kemp LoadMaster, VMware Avi Load Balancer, Zeus Load Balancer
Three alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXThree alternatives
Citrix NetScaler ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IPNine alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, NGINX, TraefikThree alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, NGINX, TraefikMiniMax M2.5no first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceHAProxy, NGINXno first choicenothing named
Seven alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXNine alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IP, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX, Radware AlteonEight alternatives
A10 Thunder, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX, TraefikThree alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Free Load Balancer, TraefikGPT-6 LunaApplication Load BalancerHAProxyChangedno first choiceagainst: F5 BIG-IPHAProxy Community Editionno first choiceagainst: AWS Classic Load Balancer, HAProxy, Kubernetes community Ingress NGINX
Four alternatives
Application Gateway, External Application Load Balancer, Front Door, Network Load BalancerTwo alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IPThree alternatives
AWS, Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINX Open SourceMuse Glimmer 30BHAProxyKemp LoadMasterChangedagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP LTMno first choiceHAProxyno first choiceagainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Basic Load Balancer, Azure IP-based Load Balancer outbound, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, NetScaler ADC
Four alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterOne alternative
Barracuda Load Balancer ADCTwelve alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancer, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, Front Door, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, TraefikTwo alternatives
NGINX Open Source, TraefikBold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Eighty-four rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct recommendation | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 19:25 | no | 0 | 6 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 09:18 | yes | 3 | 6 s |
| Direct recommendation | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 17:14 | no | 0 | 17 s |
| Direct recommendation | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 13:49 | yes | 10 | 3 s |
| Direct recommendation | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 18:14 | yes | 10 | 14 s |
| Direct recommendation | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 19:22 | yes | 5 | 4 s |
| Direct recommendation | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 13:24 | yes | 22 | 36 s |
| Direct recommendation | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 13:51 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Direct recommendation | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 09:30 | no | 0 | 31 s |
| Direct recommendation | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 08:41 | yes | 14 | 33 s |
| Direct recommendation | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 17:45 | yes | 24 | 99 s |
| Direct recommendation | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 17:48 | no | 0 | 81 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 18:36 | yes | 3 | 9 s |
| Direct recommendation | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 11:56 | yes | 13 | 18 s |
| Paraphrase | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 14:59 | no | 0 | 4 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 18:28 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Paraphrase | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 12:30 | no | 0 | 14 s |
| Paraphrase | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 15:18 | yes | 10 | 5 s |
| Paraphrase | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 17:59 | yes | 5 | 9 s |
| Paraphrase | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 11:44 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Paraphrase | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 11:00 | yes | 24 | 26 s |
| Paraphrase | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 14:34 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 12:41 | yes | 10 | 19 s |
| Paraphrase | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 12:57 | yes | 19 | 29 s |
| Paraphrase | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 10:19 | yes | 20 | 198 s |
| Paraphrase | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 12:18 | yes | 5 | 101 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 10:32 | yes | 4 | 12 s |
| Paraphrase | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 09:03 | yes | 21 | 23 s |
| Comparative | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 10:53 | yes | 9 | 8 s |
| Comparative | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 10:15 | yes | 5 | 7 s |
| Comparative | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 08:47 | no | 0 | 13 s |
| Comparative | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 10:34 | yes | 10 | 7 s |
| Comparative | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 15:28 | yes | 5 | 13 s |
| Comparative | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 19:09 | yes | 5 | 7 s |
| Comparative | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 09:19 | yes | 24 | 32 s |
| Comparative | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 10:57 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Comparative | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 12:36 | yes | 15 | 31 s |
| Comparative | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 17:29 | yes | 10 | 31 s |
| Comparative | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 19:04 | yes | 10 | 35 s |
| Comparative | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 19:26 | no | 0 | 22 s |
| Comparative | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 15:33 | yes | 8 | 21 s |
| Comparative | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 13:48 | yes | 15 | 26 s |
| Budget constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 12:00 | no | 0 | 5 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 12:08 | yes | 2 | 4 s |
| Budget constrained | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 08:43 | no | 0 | 14 s |
| Budget constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 11:02 | yes | 10 | 3 s |
| Budget constrained | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 15:40 | yes | 5 | 12 s |
| Budget constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 17:29 | yes | 5 | 4 s |
| Budget constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 18:28 | yes | 10 | 22 s |
| Budget constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 17:24 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Budget constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 09:06 | yes | 5 | 33 s |
| Budget constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 09:21 | yes | 10 | 34 s |
| Budget constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 11:34 | yes | 10 | 12 s |
| Budget constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 09:04 | yes | 9 | 63 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 15:19 | yes | 4 | 12 s |
| Budget constrained | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 15:28 | yes | 14 | 17 s |
| Scale constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 09:25 | no | 0 | 8 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 14:09 | no | 0 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 10:27 | no | 0 | 19 s |
| Scale constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 10:16 | yes | 10 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 15:27 | yes | 10 | 15 s |
| Scale constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 18:20 | no | 0 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 10:58 | yes | 19 | 25 s |
| Scale constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 11:16 | yes | 5 | 2 s |
| Scale constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 10:34 | yes | 5 | 27 s |
| Scale constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 13:20 | yes | 19 | 51 s |
| Scale constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 15:22 | yes | 10 | 30 s |
| Scale constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 10:41 | no | 0 | 12 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 14:16 | yes | 4 | 16 s |
| Scale constrained | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 19:26 | yes | 14 | 27 s |
| Negative framing | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 10:53 | no | 0 | 2 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 15:50 | no | 0 | 3 s |
| Negative framing | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.6-flash (asked for gemini-3.5-flash; the API answered as this version) | 2026-11-01 10:41 | yes | 2 | 22 s |
| Negative framing | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 12:09 | yes | 10 | 4 s |
| Negative framing | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 19:07 | yes | 10 | 12 s |
| Negative framing | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 08:42 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Negative framing | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 10:29 | yes | 23 | 22 s |
| Negative framing | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 12:00 | yes | 8 | 4 s |
| Negative framing | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 19:44 | no | 0 | 32 s |
| Negative framing | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 17:50 | yes | 25 | 72 s |
| Negative framing | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 16:51 | yes | 25 | 70 s |
| Negative framing | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 11:13 | yes | 15 | 86 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 08:55 | yes | 4 | 11 s |
| Negative framing | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 10:36 | yes | 15 | 22 s |
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
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Category-scoped readings
A10 Networks read as A10 Thunder ADC
A10 Networks (Thunder ADC) read as A10 Thunder ADC
A10 Networks Thunder ADC read as A10 Thunder ADC
AWS ALB/NLB read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS ELB read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS ELB (ALB/NLB) read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS ELB/ALB read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS Elastic Load Balancer read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) read as AWS Elastic Load Balancing
Akamai read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Azure LB read as Azure Load Balancer
Azure Standard Load Balancer read as Azure Load Balancer
Barracuda read as Barracuda Load Balancer ADC
Citrix read as Citrix ADC
Citrix (NetScaler) read as Citrix ADC
Citrix NetScaler read as Citrix ADC
Citrix NetScaler (ADC) read as Citrix ADC
Cloudflare read as Cloudflare Load Balancing
Cloudflare (Argo, Spectrum, Bot Management) read as Cloudflare Load Balancing
Cloudflare (Enterprise / Business) read as Cloudflare Load Balancing
DigitalOcean Load Balancer read as DigitalOcean Load Balancers
F5 read as F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager
GCP read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
GCP LB read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
GCP Load Balancing read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
Google Cloud LB read as Google Cloud Load Balancing
Kemp read as Kemp LoadMaster
Loadbalancer.org read as Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC
NetScaler read as NetScaler ADC
Radware read as Radware Alteon
Unresolved, counted raw
AWS Basic Load Balancer
AWS Classic Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) – ALB/NLB
Amazon Classic Load Balancer (CLB)
Apache
Apache HTTP Server
Apache Traffic Server
Apache `mod_proxy_balancer`
Azure IP-based Load Balancer outbound
Contour / Envoy
External Application Load Balancer
F5 BIG-IP Hardware Appliances
F5 BIG-IP Platform
F5 NGINX Ingress
Free Load Balancer (Progress Kemp)
Hetzner Load Balancer
Istio Gateway
Katran
Kemp Free Load Balancer
Kemp LoadMaster VA
Microsoft Azure Load Balancing options
Open-source NGINX
Pen
Pen Load Balancer
Pound
Pound Proxy Server
Pound Web Server
Progress Kemp Free Load Balancer / Free LoadMaster
Radcom
VMware NSX ALB/Avi
Zeus Load Balancer
custom LVS setups
legacy Cisco ACE
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.