HAProxy Community Edition vs PageKite
HAProxy Community Edition
haproxy.orgPageKite
pagekite.netSide by side
| Figure | HAProxy Community Edition | PageKite |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $3/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 5 |
| Spec score · Reverse Proxy Software | 8.8 (#5) | 8.3 (#9) |
| Founded | HAProxy Technologies is listed as founded in 2013. | 2010 |
| Headquarters | Newton, Massachusetts, United States | Reykjavík, Iceland |
| Integrations | The 3.4 release notes list an OpenTelemetry filter and ACME certificate features including DNS-01 challenges. | The features page names Twilio and Instagram real-time API as examples of remote services for which developers can test integrations and webhooks through PageKite. |
| Protocols | The project supports TCP and HTTP-based applications, and its listed recent versions include QUIC and HTTP/3 features. | It supports HTTP and HTTPS servers, SSH, and some other TCP-based protocols. |
| Support | The project points users to commercial support contracts and professional services from HAProxy Technologies. | The maker offers FAQ and how-to resources, online chat, and email support; Team, Business, and Embedded plans include priority support. |
| What it does | HAProxy is free, high-performance software for reverse proxying, high availability, and load balancing TCP and HTTP applications. | PageKite connects a localhost server to the public Internet through global front-end relays, acting as a dynamic tunneled reverse proxy. |
Plans
HAProxy Community Edition
- HAProxy Community EditionFree
- HAProxy Community EditionFree
- HAProxy EnterprisePriced on request
PageKite
- Pay What You Want$3 a month
- Freelancer$5.99 a month
- Team$24.99 a month
- Business$49.99 a month
- Embedded$199.95 a month
In their own words
HAProxy Community Edition
HAProxy Community Edition is free, self-hosted software for proxying TCP and HTTP applications, with high availability and load balancing. It is aimed especially at very high-traffic websites. HAProxy runs on Linux, where it is included with most mainstream distributions and is often deployed by default on cloud platforms. Its event-driven design uses light multithreading on SMP machines. The project lists Layer 4 and Layer 7 routing and TLS termination, along with TCP and HTTP support; recent versions also include QUIC and HTTP/3 features. Listed safeguards include chroot, privilege drops, fork prevention, strict protocol validation, and checks for impossible states. The site reports up to 2 million SSL requests per second and 100 Gbps of forwarded traffic on AWS Graviton2. HAProxy 3.4 is in development, and 3.4.6 is the latest listed release in that branch. Its features include dynamic backends, HTTP/2 flood protections, ACME improvements, experimental QMUX, and an OpenTelemetry filter. LTS branches receive five years of maintenance; other stable branches receive 12 to 18 months.
PageKite
PageKite exposes a server running on localhost to the public Internet through global front-end relays, working as a dynamic tunneled reverse proxy. It supports HTTP and HTTPS servers, SSH, and some other TCP-based protocols. The maker lists home-hosted sites, SSH access, embedded-device access, webhooks, APIs, and remote debugging as uses. A single pagekite.py command can make a server visible. Accounts begin with one pagekite.me DNS name, allow unlimited subdomains, and support customer domains through CNAME records. SSL is enabled by default for pagekite.me names, with end-to-end TLS and wildcard relay certificates also supported. Relays are listed in the United States, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Australia, with automatic relay selection. PageKite is open-source software using AGPLv3-or-later for pagekite.py and most releases. Platforms include Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, web, API, and self-hosted deployments. Pricing is freemium, with a free plan, paid plans from $5.99/mo, and a 31-day trial.