About HAProxy
HAProxy is a load balancer and proxy for TCP and HTTP traffic. It sits in front of your servers and spreads incoming requests across them so that no single machine is overloaded.
What it does
HAProxy accepts incoming connections and forwards them to a pool of backend servers. It checks which servers are healthy and skips any that fail. The project is known for high throughput, and it is used for websites and internal services where uptime matters.
Key features
- Spread requests across many backend servers
- Take failed servers out of rotation automatically
- Proxy both TCP and HTTP traffic
- Monitor traffic with built-in stats
- Create and remove backends from the command line
Who it's for
Operations engineers and system administrators who run busy sites or services. It also suits teams that want a load balancer with long-term support releases and published end-of-life dates, which makes upgrade planning easier.
Pricing and good to know
The core project is open source and available as source code, packages and Docker images. Enterprise features and commercial support are offered separately. Because the project runs on Linux, most installs use a Linux distribution's packages or an official container image.
Highlights
- Spread requests across many backend servers
- Take failed servers out of rotation automatically
- Proxy both TCP and HTTP traffic
- Monitor traffic with built-in stats
- Create and remove backends from the command line
