Load balancers · October 2026 Edition
NGINX vs Cloudflare Load Balancing
Four of fourteen models named NGINX first on the direct prompt; two named Cloudflare Load Balancing. NGINX was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and Cloudflare Load Balancing by twelve and NGINX carries 53 labels and Cloudflare Load Balancing 25, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in two categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
First-choice share15%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate4%0%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#3#5A position in a field of 13; printed, not drawn.
Labels5325A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, NGINX reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.HAProxy was named alongside these two in ten of the fourteen direct answers. HAProxy vs NGINX · HAProxy vs Cloudflare Load Balancing · Progress Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX
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.
NGINXFirst choices, of fourteen modelsCloudflare Load Balancing
Direct42
Paraphrase00
Comparative10
Budget-constrained30
Scale-constrained10
Negative102 against NGINX
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 October 2026 Edition, NGINX and Cloudflare Load Balancing were named in the same answer fifty times, of the 191 answers naming NGINX and the 71 naming Cloudflare Load Balancing. In those answers Cloudflare Load Balancing took the first choice ten times and NGINX six.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where NGINX and Cloudflare Load Balancing stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | |||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | |||||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | |||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | ||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | ||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
NGINX Cloudflare Load Balancing first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, NGINX on the left and Cloudflare Load Balancing on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where NGINX and Cloudflare Load Balancing stood in it.
NGINX first, Cloudflare Load Balancing an alternative
4 of 14 modelsCloudflare Load Balancing was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, NGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5, HAProxy
Grok 4.1 FastHAProxy, NGINX alternatives: AWS ALB, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Qwen 3.7 FlashAWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, NGINX alternatives: Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy
GLM 4.7 FlashXNGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy
Cloudflare Load Balancing first, NGINX an alternative
2 of 14 modelsNGINX was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Mistral SmallCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: HAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster, VMware Avi Load Balancer
Neither was the first choice, one was named
4 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.DeepSeek V4 FlashProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
MiniMax M2.5Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX
GPT-6 LunaAWS Application Load Balancer alternatives: Azure Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Application Load Balancer, Google Cloud Network Load Balancer
Muse Glimmer 30BProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Neither was named
4 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.GPT-5.4 miniApplication Load Balancer alternatives: Azure Load Balancer, Google Cloud's Application Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer
Perplexity SonarHAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Kimi K2HAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: F5 NGINX
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
NGINX leads by three points.
NGINX14%#2 of 13Cloudflare Load Balancing11%#3 of 13Mid-marketThe figures above
NGINX leads by twelve points.
NGINX15%#3 of 13Cloudflare Load Balancing4%#5 of 13Enterprise
The order flips: Cloudflare Load Balancing leads at enterprise.
Cloudflare Load Balancing6%#3 of 10NGINX4%#4 of 10What the models said about NGINX
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“running them on under-powered virtual machines ... creates a bottleneck” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Don't use Nginx for complex load balancing - It's a web server first” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · soft negative
“A well-run software load balancer (HAProxy or NGINX) or a cloud-managed service will give you the performance, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness you need” DeepSeek V4 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“a cloud-based load balancer (if you're in the cloud) or Nginx (if on-premises) represents the best balance of cost, performance, and ease of management” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“The Industry Standard (Flexible & Powerful): NGINX ... If you are moving toward a microservices/Kubernetes architecture, transition to NGINX Ingress.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about Cloudflare Load Balancing
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of four in this category shown.
“Ideal for companies needing global traffic steering, failover, and strong DDoS protection... making it a good fit for B2B companies with a global customer base” Mistral Small · direct prompt · first choice
“Best For: B2B SaaS companies, multi-cloud setups, and security-first organizations... Combines global routing with top-tier security at the edge” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“Best if you want managed service simplicity: Cloudflare Load Balancing ... though managed services can become expensive as usage grows” Perplexity Sonar · budget prompt · alternative
Also compared
HAProxy vs NGINXHAProxy vs Cloudflare Load BalancingProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINXProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs Cloudflare Load BalancingNGINX vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingNGINX vs TraefikNGINX vs Azure Load BalancerNGINX vs Azure Application GatewayAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Cloudflare Load BalancingCloudflare Load Balancing vs TraefikCloudflare Load Balancing vs Azure Load BalancerCloudflare Load Balancing vs Azure Application GatewayAll 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.