Load Balancing Software Resources

I'm researching which load balancing solutions minimize downtime and latency during traffic spikes, and checked it against reviews. In the load balancing category, three come up most: HAProxy, Cloudflare Application Security and Performance, and AWS Elastic Load Balancing. The wider list:

1. HAProxy: an event-driven architecture reviewers say handles spikes gracefully at low CPU and memory.
2. Cloudflare Application Security and Performance: absorbs spikes and bad bots at the edge before they reach your origin.
3. AWS Elastic Load Balancing: Auto Scaling integration reviewers rely on for flash sales and sudden load.
4. F5 NGINX: lightweight and high-concurrency, holding availability during peak bursts.
5. Google Cloud Load Balancing: autoscales with traffic and reroutes off unhealthy servers under load.

For teams that hit real spikes, which kept latency and downtime lowest? And did the load balancer keep up, or did the bottleneck move to your backends?

I'm researching which load balancing solutions minimize downtime and latency during traffic spikes, and checked it against reviews. In the load balancing category, three come up most: HAProxy, Cloudflare Application Security and Performance, and AWS Elastic Load Balancing. The wider list:

1. HAProxy: an event-driven architecture reviewers say handles spikes gracefully at low CPU and memory.
2. Cloudflare Application Security and Performance: absorbs spikes and bad bots at the edge before they reach your origin.
3. AWS Elastic Load Balancing: Auto Scaling integration reviewers rely on for flash sales and sudden load.
4. F5 NGINX: lightweight and high-concurrency, holding availability during peak bursts.
5. Google Cloud Load Balancing: autoscales with traffic and reroutes off unhealthy servers under load.

For teams that hit real spikes, which kept latency and downtime lowest? And did the load balancer keep up, or did the bottleneck move to your backends?

Which load balancing platforms give you predictable implementation and pricing, without per-request or bandwidth overages? The metered cloud options can get unpredictable fast, so this matters. A few from the load balancing category:

• HAProxy: open-source with no per-request fees, though reviewers note the config has a learning curve.
• Progress Kemp LoadMaster: reviewers call it well priced and predictable versus bigger ADC brands.
• Traefik: open-source and free to run, with paid tiers for enterprise features.
• F5 NGINX: predictable to run open-source, with enterprise features gated behind the commercial Plus license.

For teams that wanted predictable costs, which avoided the metered surprises? And where did predictable pricing trade off against setup effort or missing features?