Load balancers for enterprise buyers
Asked as “load balancer”, and as “application delivery controller”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 61 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, fourteen models each. Added to the November 2026 Edition.
Standing · first-choice share
23%
Contested · HAProxy 18%
23F5 BIG-IP18HAProxy10F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager49others
23% of first choices, contested.
Since October 2026▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.F5 BIG-IP held the lead, −17 points on 40%, past the 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.Standing →EnterpriseF5 BIG-IP23%Contested▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.This page
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.Standing →EnterpriseF5 BIG-IP23%Contested▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.This pageThe standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all fourteen models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince October 2026
01F5 BIG-IP23%20%46accepted challenger▼−17Since October 2026: 40% → 23%, −17 points. Past the 11-point floor: movement.40% → 23%
02HAProxy18%10%58accepted challenger▲+6Since October 2026: 12% → 18%, +6 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.12% → 18%
HAProxy18%10%58accepted challenger▲+6Since October 2026: 12% → 18%, +6 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.12% → 18%03F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager10%14%14accepted challenger▲+4Since October 2026: 6% → 10%, +4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.6% → 10%
04Progress Kemp LoadMaster8%6%16accepted challenger▲+4Since October 2026: 4% → 8%, +4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 8%
05AWS Elastic Load Balancing5%29%35criticized challenger▲+5Since October 2026: 0% → 5%, +5 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 5%
06
NGINX2%9%45accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%
NGINX2%9%45accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%07
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%0%26accepted challenger▼−4Since October 2026: 6% → 2%, −4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.6% → 2%
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%0%26accepted challenger▼−4Since October 2026: 6% → 2%, −4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.6% → 2%08Citrix ADC2%21%34accepted challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
09
Radware Alteon2%10%20accepted challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
Radware Alteon2%10%20accepted challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%10
Kemp LoadMaster2%7%14accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%
Kemp LoadMaster2%7%14accepted challenger▼−2Since October 2026: 4% → 2%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.4% → 2%11GCP Cloud Load Balancing2%45%11criticized challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
12AWS Application Load Balancer2%50%14criticized challenger=heldSince October 2026: 2% → 2%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.2% → 2%
13Azure Load Balancer2%46%26criticized challenger▲+2Since October 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 2%
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
15
Azure Application Gateway0%25%12criticized challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
Azure Application Gateway0%25%12criticized challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%16Google Cloud Load Balancing Lab in the set0%21%14accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
14
A10 Thunder ADC0%13%15accepted challenger=heldSince October 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise.0% → 0%
A10 Thunder ADC0%13%15accepted 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
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
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 →
F01
02F03
P04
A05
0607C08
0910G11
A12
A13
1415G16
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01F5 BIG-IP23%
02HAProxy18%
HAProxy18%03F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager10%
04Progress Kemp LoadMaster8%
05AWS Elastic Load Balancing5%
06NGINX2%
NGINX2%07Cloudflare Load Balancing2%
Cloudflare Load Balancing2%08Citrix ADC2%
09Radware Alteon2%
Radware Alteon2%10Kemp LoadMaster2%
Kemp LoadMaster2%11GCP Cloud Load Balancing2%
12AWS Application Load Balancer2%
13Azure Load Balancer2%
14A10 Thunder ADC0%
A10 Thunder ADC0%15Azure Application Gateway0%
Azure Application Gateway0%16Google Cloud Load Balancing0%
What they warned about
Four of fourteen models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, MiniMax M2.5, 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.
Azure Load Balancer
46%
12 of 26 labels negative · 8 of 14 models · 5 hard negative
“Criticized in enterprise comparisons for high negative sentiment, indicating potential issues with performance, support, or integration in complex environments.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Citrix ADC
21%
7 of 34 labels negative · 7 of 14 models · 5 hard negative
“Frequently criticized (48%+ negative rates in 2026 indexes). High complexity, licensing costs, and support issues... avoid for greenfield large-scale deployments.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
AWS Elastic Load Balancing
29%
10 of 35 labels negative · 7 of 14 models · 4 hard negative
“Also flagged with a high negative share, suggesting enterprises have encountered significant drawbacks” Mistral Small, negative prompt
F5 BIG-IP
20%
9 of 46 labels negative · 6 of 14 models · 4 hard negative
“Internet-facing, monolithic ADC appliances with a history of unauthenticated RCE and long dwell, e.g., F5 BIG-IP APM/TMUI and Citrix NetScaler ADC/Gateway” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative 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
71 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. 843 links across 232 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 · Loadbalancer.org31 answers · 53 citations · 12 models
vendor site · F526 answers · 43 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Amazon23 answers · 38 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G222 answers · 32 citations · 12 models
publisher (Gane)19 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Kemp Technologies18 answers · 27 citations · 7 models
16 answers · 26 citations · 8 models
vendor site · HAProxy14 answers · 14 citations · 10 models
12 answers · 18 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 15 citations · 8 models
vendor site · LinkedIn12 answers · 15 citations · 6 models
11 answers · 11 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.
19 answers · 9 models
13 answers · 11 models
13 answers · 9 models
12 answers · 7 models
10 answers · 5 models
10 answers · 5 models
10 answers · 6 models
9 answers · 7 models
9 answers · 6 models
9 answers · 8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F5 BIG-IP | 23% | 1,600 | 374 | |||||
| HAProxy haproxy.com | 18% | 142 | 4,400 | 424 | 18,410 | 4 | ||
| F5 f5.com F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager 10%, F5 BIG-IP LTM 5%, F5 Networks 2% | 16% | 23 | 27,100 | 17,155 | 178,423 company | $5 | 120 | 1 |
| AWS parent site AWS Elastic Load Balancing 5%, AWS Network Load Balancer 2%, AWS Application Load Balancer 2% | 8% | 83 | 368,000 | 114,001 | ||||
| Progress Kemp LoadMaster | 8% | 50 | 2 | |||||
| Application Load Balancer | 3% | 720 | 100 | |||||
| Cloudflare parent site Cloudflare Load Balancing 2%, Cloudflare Load Balancer 2% | 3% | 69 | 550,000 | 10,897 | ||||
| NGINX nginx.org | 2% | 152 | 33,100 | 4,362 | 38,473 | |||
| Citrix parent site Citrix ADC 2% | 2% | 69 | 260 | 36 | ||||
| Radware radware.com Radware Alteon 2% | 2% | 26 | 1,900 | 116 | 43,076 company | $21 | 13 |
Google's top ten for the three searches hold 22 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (aws.amazon.com, f5.com, g2.com, kemptechnologies.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 an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which application delivery controller would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade load balancers and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best load balancer for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a load balancer. What should we look at?”Negative“Which load balancers should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceF5 BIG-IP LTMChangedF5 BIG-IPAWS Network Load Balancer, Application Load Balancer, HAProxy, NGINXno first choicenothing named
Seven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXOne alternative
NetScaler ADCFour alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Citrix ADC, HAProxyOne alternative
F5 BIG-IPGPT-5.4 miniAWS Application Load BalancerF5 BIG-IPChangedF5 BIG-IPF5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, HAProxyagainst: AWS Lightsail Load Balancerno first choiceagainst: Azure Application Gateway, Azure Basic Load Balancer
Three alternatives
F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Application Load Balancer, HAProxyThree alternatives
Citrix ADC, FortiADC, Radware AlteonFour alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADC, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, Progress Kemp LoadMasterTwo alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Google Cloud Load BalancingGemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerF5 NetworksChangedF5 BIG-IP, F5 Distributed Cloud, NetScaler ADCHAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, GCP Cloud Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: AWS Application Load Balancers, Citrix ADC, Envoy, F5 BIG-IP hardware series, GCP HTTP LBs, HAProxy, NGINX
Four alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, HAProxy, Microsoft Azure: Azure Application Gateway, TraefikThree alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NetScaler ADCSeven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Front Door, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, VMware Avi Load BalancerThree alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINX, VMware Avi Load BalancerNine alternatives
AVI Networks, AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 NGINX, Fastly, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, TraefikPerplexity SonarHAProxyNetScaler ADCChangedno first choiceHAProxyagainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, Google Cloud load balancersno first choicenothing named
Seven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IP, F5 NGINX, VMware Avi Load BalancerThree alternatives
F5 BIG-IP, FortiADC, Kemp LoadMasterTen alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, NetScaler ADC, Progress Kemp LoadMasterOne alternative
Cloudflare Load BalancingGrok 4.20F5 BIG-IPagainst: HAProxyF5 BIG-IPHeldF5 BIG-IPHAProxyagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: A10 Thunder ADC, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancer, HAProxy, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINX, Radware Alteon
Three alternatives
Citrix ADC, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterFour alternatives
Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Fortinet FortiADC, Radware AlteonSeven alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, AVI Networks, Citrix ADC, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster, Radware AlteonTwo alternatives
NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterTwo alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load BalancingMistral SmallAWS Elastic Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IPF5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerChangedCitrix ADC, F5 BIG-IPF5 BIG-IPagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load BalancerAWS Elastic Load Balancing, Akamai Edge, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancer, GCP Cloud Load Balancingagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, Kemp LoadMaster
Two alternatives
Kemp LoadMaster, NGINXTwo alternatives
NetScaler ADC, Radware AlteonThree alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINXTwo alternatives
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, NGINXDeepSeek V4 FlashF5 BIG-IPF5 BIG-IPHeldF5 BIG-IPProgress Kemp LoadMasterno first choiceagainst: A10, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, Nginx OSS, Raw HAProxy
Five alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterTwo alternatives
Citrix ADC, Radware AlteonNine alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, Radware AlteonThree alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxyLlama 4 MaverickAWS Elastic Load BalancingF5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, Kemp LoadMaster, Radware AlteonChangedno first choiceF5 BIG-IPno first choicenothing named
Two alternatives
HAProxy, Kemp LoadMasterQwen 3.7 FlashF5 BIG-IP, HAProxyF5 BIG-IPChangedF5 BIG-IPProgress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxyno first choiceagainst: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manageragainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, HAProxy, Kemp Technologies, LVS, Radware Alteon
Five alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, F5 NGINX, Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINXThree alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADC, FortiADCFive alternatives
Citrix ADC, HAProxy, Kemp Technologies, NGINX, VMware Avi Load BalancerOne alternative
Cloudflare Load BalancingKimi K2F5 BIG-IPF5 BIG-IPHeldF5 BIG-IPHAProxyagainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: F5 BIG-IPagainst: A10 Thunder ADC, AVI Networks, AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, NGINX, Snapt, VMware Avi Load Balancer
Four alternatives
A10 Networks Thunder, Citrix ADC, HAProxy, NGINXOne alternative
Citrix ADCFive alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADC, HAProxy, NGINX, Radware AlteonTwo alternatives
NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMasterFour alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, HAProxy, NGINXGLM 4.7 FlashXF5 BIG-IPagainst: Akamai Connected CloudF5 BIG-IPHeldF5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerProgress Kemp LoadMaster, Self-Hosted HAProxyagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, GCP Cloud Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: AVI Networks, AWS Elastic Load Balancing, AWS Network Load Balancer, Azure Basic Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Brocade Load Balancers, Cisco ACE, F5 i2600/i2600 Series, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, Snapt
Seven alternatives
AWS Application Load Balancer, Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, F5 NGINX, HAProxy, NGINXFour alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Cisco Secure ADC, Fortinet, Radware AlteonTen alternatives
AWS, Akamai Connected Cloud, Azure, Citrix ADC, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, NGINX, Radware AlteonTwo alternatives
Cloudflare Load Balancing, NGINXMiniMax M2.5F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerF5 BIG-IP LTMChangedF5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerHAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMasteragainst: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancerno first choiceagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, GCP Cloud Load Balancing
Four alternatives
Citrix ADC, HAProxy, NGINX, Radware AlteonTwo alternatives
Citrix ADC, Radware AlteonFour alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, Citrix ADC, Radware Alteon, VMware Avi Load BalancerTwo alternatives
Civo Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load BalancerGPT-6 LunaApplication Load BalancerF5 BIG-IP LTMChangedno first choiceHAProxyagainst: AWS Application Load Balancerno first choiceagainst: Ingress NGINX, Kubernetes, NetScaler ADC
Four alternatives
Application Gateway, Azure Front Door, Network Load Balancer, global external Application Load BalancerThree alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, AWS Application Load Balancer, NetScaler ADCFive alternatives
A10 Thunder ADC, F5 BIG-IP LTM, HAProxy, NGINX, NetScaler ADCMuse Glimmer 30BCitrix ADC, Citrix Systems Inc., F5 Networks Inc.F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic ManagerChangedF5 BIG-IPagainst: Progress Kemp LoadMasterHAProxy, Traefikagainst: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Google Cloud Load Balancingno first choiceagainst: AWS Classic Load Balancer, Citrix NetScaler ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Ingress NGINX, NGINX, VMware Avi / NSX Advanced Load Balancer
Seven alternatives
AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Web Services, Inc., Azure Application Gateway, Cloudflare, Inc., HAProxy, HAProxy Technologies Inc., NGINXOne alternative
Citrix ADCThree alternatives
Citrix ADC, now NetScaler, HAProxy, NGINXTwo alternatives
F5 BIG-IP, Progress Kemp LoadMasterBold 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 11:34 | no | 0 | 6 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 14:35 | yes | 4 | 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 14:59 | no | 0 | 14 s |
| Direct recommendation | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 19:18 | yes | 10 | 4 s |
| Direct recommendation | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 14:34 | yes | 5 | 13 s |
| Direct recommendation | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 13:55 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Direct recommendation | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 18:08 | yes | 20 | 34 s |
| Direct recommendation | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 19:39 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Direct recommendation | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 12:02 | yes | 5 | 27 s |
| Direct recommendation | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 19:32 | yes | 10 | 37 s |
| Direct recommendation | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 09:24 | yes | 15 | 40 s |
| Direct recommendation | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 09:28 | yes | 10 | 66 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 15:05 | yes | 3 | 11 s |
| Direct recommendation | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 14:29 | yes | 14 | 25 s |
| Paraphrase | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 08:53 | yes | 9 | 8 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 13:48 | 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 14:40 | no | 0 | 17 s |
| Paraphrase | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 15:17 | yes | 10 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 14:58 | yes | 5 | 15 s |
| Paraphrase | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 19:24 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 11:00 | yes | 21 | 24 s |
| Paraphrase | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 19:42 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 13:23 | yes | 5 | 37 s |
| Paraphrase | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 14:04 | yes | 19 | 49 s |
| Paraphrase | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 09:35 | yes | 19 | 32 s |
| Paraphrase | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 19:06 | yes | 5 | 26 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 12:53 | yes | 4 | 14 s |
| Paraphrase | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 12:19 | yes | 13 | 24 s |
| Comparative | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 18:33 | yes | 18 | 12 s |
| Comparative | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 15:01 | yes | 0 | 30 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 15:26 | yes | 9 | 27 s |
| Comparative | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 18:26 | yes | 10 | 7 s |
| Comparative | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 17:38 | yes | 10 | 16 s |
| Comparative | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 09:35 | yes | 14 | 12 s |
| Comparative | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 19:36 | yes | 24 | 73 s |
| Comparative | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 16:40 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Comparative | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 13:15 | no | 0 | 36 s |
| Comparative | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 12:02 | yes | 20 | 40 s |
| Comparative | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 16:56 | yes | 20 | 94 s |
| Comparative | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 14:05 | yes | 20 | 74 s |
| Comparative | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 17:13 | yes | 8 | 21 s |
| Comparative | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 17:02 | yes | 14 | 26 s |
| Budget constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 11:44 | no | 0 | 5 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 13:11 | yes | 4 | 5 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 08:56 | yes | 11 | 26 s |
| Budget constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 09:09 | yes | 10 | 4 s |
| Budget constrained | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 17:16 | yes | 5 | 10 s |
| Budget constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 17:24 | yes | 15 | 9 s |
| Budget constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 15:22 | yes | 25 | 35 s |
| Budget constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 13:02 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Budget constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 11:23 | yes | 19 | 89 s |
| Budget constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 14:22 | yes | 18 | 37 s |
| Budget constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 18:28 | yes | 24 | 94 s |
| Budget constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 10:36 | yes | 5 | 26 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 16:17 | yes | 2 | 12 s |
| Budget constrained | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 09:59 | yes | 14 | 29 s |
| Scale constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 17:57 | no | 0 | 6 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 09:19 | no | 0 | 3 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 16:13 | no | 0 | 18 s |
| Scale constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 11:25 | yes | 10 | 8 s |
| Scale constrained | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 18:01 | yes | 15 | 19 s |
| Scale constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 09:47 | no | 0 | 8 s |
| Scale constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 11:35 | yes | 25 | 38 s |
| Scale constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 10:56 | yes | 5 | 4 s |
| Scale constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 12:11 | no | 0 | 34 s |
| Scale constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 13:57 | yes | 25 | 50 s |
| Scale constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 10:48 | yes | 9 | 36 s |
| Scale constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 12:17 | no | 0 | 13 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 17:39 | yes | 3 | 20 s |
| Scale constrained | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 10:58 | yes | 25 | 27 s |
| Negative framing | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-11-01 08:53 | yes | 17 | 7 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-11-01 17:13 | yes | 5 | 7 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 19:30 | yes | 2 | 23 s |
| Negative framing | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-11-01 14:16 | yes | 10 | 6 s |
| Negative framing | Grok 4.20 | spacexai/grok-4.20-non-reasoning via xai | 2026-11-01 16:45 | yes | 15 | 15 s |
| Negative framing | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-11-01 10:50 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Negative framing | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra | 2026-11-01 10:20 | yes | 25 | 30 s |
| Negative framing | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-11-01 17:58 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Negative framing | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-11-01 18:08 | no | 0 | 32 s |
| Negative framing | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-11-01 09:33 | yes | 20 | 59 s |
| Negative framing | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-11-01 09:02 | yes | 25 | 74 s |
| Negative framing | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-11-01 09:58 | yes | 10 | 56 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna | 2026-11-01 10:03 | yes | 3 | 17 s |
| Negative framing | Muse Glimmer 30B | meta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai | 2026-11-01 12:54 | yes | 24 | 37 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 Elastic Load Balancer 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 (ADC) read as Citrix ADC
Citrix NetScaler (ADC/Gateway) read as Citrix ADC
Cloudflare read as Cloudflare Load Balancing
Cloudflare Enterprise read as Cloudflare Load Balancing
F5 read as F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager
F5 (BIG-IP & NGINX Plus) read as F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager
GCP read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
GCP Cloud LB read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
GCP LB read as GCP Cloud Load Balancing
GCP Load Balancer 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
Loadbalancer.org read as Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC
Loadbalancer.org Enterprise read as Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC
NetScaler read as NetScaler ADC
NetScaler (formerly Citrix ADC) read as NetScaler ADC
Radware read as Radware Alteon
Radware (Alteon) read as Radware Alteon
Unresolved, counted raw
A10 Networks Inc.
AWS Application Load Balancers
AWS Global Accelerator
AWS Lightsail Load Balancer
Akamai Edge
Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Array Networks Inc.
Avi Networks Inc.
Barracuda Networks Inc.
Brocade Load Balancers
Cisco Secure ADC
Citrix ADC, now NetScaler
Citrix Systems Inc.
Civo Load Balancer
Cloudflare, Inc.
F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition
F5 BIG-IP hardware series
F5 Networks Inc.
F5 i2600/i2600 Series
GCP HTTP LBs
Google Cloud load balancers
Google Cloud: GCP Cloud Load Balancing
Google LLC
HAProxy Technologies Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P.
Imperva Inc.
Inlab Networks GmbH
KEMP Technologies Inc.
LVS
Load Balancer Enterprise ADC
Loadbalancer.org Ltd.
Microsoft Azure: Azure Application Gateway
Nginx Inc.
Nginx OSS
Pulse Secure LLC
Radware Ltd.
Raw HAProxy
Self-Hosted HAProxy
VMware Avi / NSX Advanced Load Balancer
global external Application Load Balancer
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.