Load balancers · November 2026 Edition
HAProxy vs AWS Application Load Balancer
Three of fourteen models named HAProxy first on the direct prompt; two named AWS Application Load Balancer. HAProxy was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and AWS Application Load Balancer by ten and HAProxy carries 61 labels and AWS Application Load Balancer 14, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in three categories this edition.
AWS Application Load Balancer
accepted challengerNamed in one category this edition.
First-choice share32%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate8%14%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#7A position in a field of 16; printed, not drawn.
Labels6114A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, HAProxy reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.NGINX was named alongside these two in eleven of the fourteen direct answers. HAProxy vs NGINX · HAProxy vs Kemp LoadMaster · HAProxy vs Progress Kemp LoadMaster
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; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the load balancers page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
HAProxyFirst choices, of fourteen modelsAWS Application Load BalancerDirect32
Paraphrase101 against HAProxy
Comparative30
Budget-constrained110
Scale-constrained10
Negative104 against HAProxy · 2 against AWS Application Load Balancer
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, HAProxy and AWS Application Load Balancer were named in the same answer forty-three times, of the 191 answers naming HAProxy and the 51 naming AWS Application Load Balancer. In those answers AWS Application Load Balancer took the first choice five times and HAProxy twelve.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where HAProxy and AWS Application Load Balancer stood in it.
| Model | DirectAA | ParaphraseAA | ComparativeAA | Budget-constrainedAA | Scale-constrainedAA | NegativeAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | AA | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | AA | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | AA | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | AA | |||
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | ||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | AA | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | AA | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | AA | AA | | | ||
| GPT-6 Luna | AA | | ||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | AA |
HAProxyAA AWS Application Load Balancer first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, HAProxy on the left and AWS Application Load Balancer on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where HAProxy and AWS Application Load Balancer stood in it.
HAProxy first, AWS Application Load Balancer not the choice
3 of 14 modelsAWS Application Load Balancer was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Grok 4.20HAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) – ALB/NLB, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
DeepSeek V4 FlashHAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: NGINX
Muse Glimmer 30BHAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
AWS Application Load Balancer first, HAProxy not the choice
2 of 14 modelsHAProxy was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer alternatives: Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX
GPT-5.4 miniAWS Application Load Balancer alternatives: AWS Network Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Application Load Balancer
Neither was the first choice, one was named
8 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Perplexity SonarProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Mistral SmallNGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC
Llama 4 MaverickNGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster
Qwen 3.7 FlashNGINX alternatives: Application Load Balancer, HAProxy
Kimi K2Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: HAProxy
GLM 4.7 FlashXProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
MiniMax M2.5no first choice alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Neither was named
1 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.GPT-6 LunaApplication Load Balancer alternatives: Application Gateway, External Application Load Balancer, Front Door, Network Load Balancer
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
HAProxy leads by twelve points.
HAProxy19%#1 of 14AWS Application Load Balancer7%#5 of 14
The full small business standing →Mid-marketThe figures above
HAProxy leads by twenty-eight points.
HAProxy32%#1 of 16AWS Application Load Balancer4%#7 of 16
The full mid-market standing →Enterprise
HAProxy leads by sixteen points.
HAProxy18%#2 of 16AWS Application Load Balancer2%#12 of 16
The full enterprise standing →What the models said about HAProxy
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Older or unpatched self-hosted solutions (e.g., legacy HAProxy, Apache, or custom LVS setups): These can suffer from single points of failure” Grok 4.20 · negative prompt · soft negative
“HAProxy\u2019s official docs label some releases EOL; don\u2019t assume an old install is still receiving fixes” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative
“Running a single NGINX or HAProxy instance as your load balancer creates a single point of failure” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Consistently the fastest performer in benchmarks with lowest latency and memory footprint; battle-tested in production for decades.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
“The best load balancer for a company with a limited budget is HAProxy, as it is a cost-efficient, open-source deployment option.” Llama 4 Maverick · budget prompt · first choice
“HAProxy is the best overall load balancing software for most teams because its open-source core is free and production-grade” Claude Haiku 4.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
What the models said about AWS Application Load Balancer
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“AWS ALB is unsuitable for workloads requiring L4 forwarding, ultra-low-latency pass-through, or non-HTTP protocols; use NLB or the appropriate L4 service instead.” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“ALB is not the right choice when the workload is non-HTTP (use NLB)” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“I'd recommend starting with AWS ALB or Azure Load Balancer (depending on your cloud provider)” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“AWS-centric company: AWS Application Load Balancer for web apps” GPT-5.4 mini · direct prompt · first choice
“Cloud-first, mostly HTTP(S) APIs, limited ops staff | AWS ALB, Azure Application Gateway, Google Cloud Load Balancing” MiniMax M2.5 · direct prompt · alternative
Also compared
HAProxy vs NGINXHAProxy vs Kemp LoadMasterHAProxy vs Progress Kemp LoadMasterHAProxy vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingHAProxy vs A10 Thunder ADCHAProxy vs Cloudflare Load BalancingNGINX vs AWS Application Load BalancerKemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs AWS Application Load BalancerA10 Thunder ADC vs AWS Application Load BalancerAWS Application Load Balancer vs Cloudflare Load BalancingAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full load balancers standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.