# Load balancers for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Asked as "load balancer" and as "application delivery controller", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Added to the November 2026 Edition. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/2026-11/smb

**Standing:** HAProxy leads with 19% of first choices; verdict contested. 58 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [HAProxy](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/haproxy/index.md) | 19% | 18% | 67 |
| 2 | [AWS Elastic Load Balancing](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-elastic-load-balancing/index.md) | 14% | 11% | 37 |
| 3 | [NGINX](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/nginx/index.md) | 12% | 15% | 67 |
| 4 | [Cloudflare Load Balancing](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/cloudflare-load-balancing/index.md) | 9% | 0% | 36 |
| 6 | [AWS Application Load Balancer](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-application-load-balancer/index.md) | 7% | 17% | 23 |
| 7 | [Google Cloud Load Balancing](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/google-cloud-load-balancing/index.md) | 3% | 14% | 22 |
| 8 | [Azure Load Balancer](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-load-balancer/index.md) | 3% | 16% | 19 |
| 9 | [Kemp LoadMaster](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/kemp-loadmaster/index.md) | 3% | 20% | 20 |
| 10 | [Azure Application Gateway](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-application-gateway/index.md) | 3% | 20% | 10 |
| 12 | [Traefik](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/traefik/index.md) | 2% | 3% | 37 |
| 13 | [DigitalOcean Load Balancers](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/digitalocean-load-balancers/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 20 | [Caddy](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/caddy/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 13 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 98 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: AWS Elastic Load Balancing; alternatives Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy
- GPT-5.4 mini: Elastic Load Balancing; alternatives Azure Load Balancer/Application Gateway, Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Cloudflare Load Balancing; alternatives AWS Application Load Balancer, HAProxy, NGINX, Traefik
- Perplexity Sonar: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Google Cloud Load Balancing; alternatives Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
- Grok 4.20: NGINX; alternatives AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Application Load Balancer, HAProxy, Keepalived
- Mistral Small: AWS Elastic Load Balancing; alternatives Kemp LoadMaster, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINX
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HAProxy; alternatives AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX
- Llama 4 Maverick: AWS Elastic Load Balancing; alternatives F5 BIG-IP, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HAProxy; alternatives AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX
- Kimi K2: NGINX; alternatives Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, Progress Free LoadMaster
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, HAProxy, NGINX
- MiniMax M2.5: no first choice
- GPT-6 Luna: AWS Application Load Balancer; alternatives Azure Application Gateway, Azure Front Door, Google Cloud External Application Load Balancer
- Muse Glimmer 30B: HAProxy; alternatives AWS Elastic Load Balancing – ALB/NLB, Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINX

## Sources the answers cite

59 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 13 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- spotsaas.com: 28 answers, 31 citations
- gane.ai/index: 25 answers, 26 citations
- loadbalancer.org: 19 answers, 22 citations
- g2.com: 17 answers, 22 citations
- costbench.com: 16 answers, 25 citations
- aws.amazon.com: 16 answers, 23 citations
- softwareadvice.com: 14 answers, 14 citations
- saasworthy.com: 12 answers, 12 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/smb (25 answers)
- https://spotsaas.com/list/load-balancing-software/for-small-business (25 answers)
- https://costbench.com/best/load-balancers-for-small-business (12 answers)
- https://saasworthy.com/list/load-balancing-software (12 answers)
- https://softwareadvice.com/load-balancing (12 answers)
- https://devopsschool.com/blog/top-10-load-balancers-features-pros-cons-comparison (11 answers)
- https://skudonet.com/blog/top-5-free-load-balancers-for-businesses (10 answers)
- https://loadbalancer.org/blog/whats-the-best-cloud-load-balancer (8 answers)
- https://scmgalaxy.com/tutorials/top-10-load-balancers-features-pros-cons-comparison (8 answers)
- https://freeloadbalancer.com/blog/load-balancing-router-what-it-is-and-which-one-to-choose (7 answers)

## Warned against

- F5 BIG-IP: 20 of 23 labels negative. "Avoid enterprise-heavy ones like F5 BIG-IP or Citrix unless you need advanced security (they're overkill and expensive for small teams)." (Grok 4.20, comparative prompt)
- Citrix ADC: 15 of 19 labels negative. "For a small shop that is not already a Citrix customer, the licensing model and support/maintenance overhead is usually overkill." (Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt)
- HAProxy: 12 of 67 labels negative. "No vendor support ... just don't treat the free version as "set it and forget it."" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- NGINX: 10 of 67 labels negative. "don't self-host HAProxy or NGINX unless you have a specific requirement" (GPT-6 Luna, direct prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: HAProxy at 19%.

- Kemp LoadMaster: 10% to 3%, −7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 5 → 9 of 98.
- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: 10% to 14%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 4 → 2 of 98.
- AWS Application Load Balancer: 3% to 7%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 8 → 6 of 98.
- Azure Load Balancer: 6% to 3%, −3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 7 → 8 of 98.
- Azure Application Gateway: 0% to 3%, +3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 18 → 10 of 98.
- NGINX: 14% to 12%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 2 → 3 of 98.
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: 11% to 9%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 3 → 4 of 98.
- HAProxy: 20% to 19%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 1 of 98, unchanged.
- Traefik: 1% to 2%, +1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 12 of 98, unchanged.
- DigitalOcean Load Balancers: 3% to 2%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 10 → 13 of 98.
- Google Cloud Load Balancing: 3% to 3%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 9 → 7 of 98.
- Caddy: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 19 → 20 of 98.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.