Free Load Balancer
Worth it
Confidence: Medium
Homelabbers, developers, and small teams should grab it: commercial-grade load balancing and a WAF at $0.
Comparison
Free Load Balancer vs HAProxy
Free Load Balancer lands on Worth it, and HAProxy lands on Depends.
HAProxy
Depends
Confidence: Medium
A buy for engineering teams running serious traffic who are comfortable with config files and patching.
| Compare | Free Load Balancer | HAProxy |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Worth it | Depends |
| Best for | Homelab builders | High-traffic web infrastructure |
| Who it's not for | Production apps needing vendor SLA support | Non-technical teams wanting a dashboard |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.³ | Mature, actively patched open-source project; several CVEs disclosed 2023-2024, including one critical (CVSS 9.1, patched). |
| Support quality | No support evidence in sources | No support evidence in reviewed sources |
| Public sentiment | Homelab and sysadmin communities call it a full-featured, proven free balancer, though some users are unclear on free-edition limits.⁴ | Comparisons and guides consistently describe HAProxy as fast, stable and highly configurable, but aimed at hands-on operators rather than beginners.16 |
| Biggest gotcha | Production support likely needs paid Kemp plans . budget for that before relying on it.⁵ | Multiple HTTP request-smuggling CVEs disclosed 2023-2024; patch promptly |
Pick Free Load Balancer when
- Homelab builders
- Budget-constrained small teams
- Dev and test environments
- Developers wanting GUI, not CLI config
When Free Load Balancer is not a fit
- Production apps needing vendor SLA support
- Open-source purists . use HAProxy or NGINX
- Large enterprises needing HA clusters with paid support
- Cloud-native teams better served by provider balancers
Pick HAProxy when
- High-traffic web infrastructure
- Teams with in-house ops skills
- TCP and database load balancing
- Cost-sensitive scaling
When HAProxy is not a fit
- Non-technical teams wanting a dashboard
- Anyone wanting a fully managed cloud LB
- Small sites with one server . use your host's balancer
- Teams that won't track security patches
Sources
- Free Load Balancer (official site)freeloadbalancer.comofficial
- Free Web Application Firewall (WAF)freeloadbalancer.comofficial
- Security pagefreeloadbalancer.comsecurity
- Kemp Load Master - Free virtual load balancerforums.lawrencesystems.comreview
- No, it's not a bloody free load balancer . and never will beloadbalancer.orgreview
review
- Kemp Free LoadMaster . Reddit r/sysadminreddit.comreview
- LoadMaster Leads G2 Summer 2025 Grid for Load Balancingkemptechnologies.comnews
- Boost Your Homelab Setup with FreeLoadBalancer.comfreeloadbalancer.comofficial
- Top Best Software Load Balancers: Free & Open Source In 2025openbankingforum.orgreview
- Progress Free Load Balancervirtualisedfruit.co.ukreview
- HAProxy official sitehaproxy.orgofficial
- HAProxy Load Balancer Configuration Basicshaproxy.comofficial
- What Is HAProxy? A Practical Guide to L4/L7 Load Balancinglogicmonitor.comreview
review