---
title: HAProxy OpenTelemetry monitoring overview
source: https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/overview
---

Get complete visibility into your HAProxy load balancers with OpenTelemetry. You can collect metrics from HAProxy's CSV stats endpoint (via the [haproxyreceiver](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/receiver/haproxyreceiver)) or from its built-in Prometheus endpoint (HAProxy 2.0+). New Relic supports both self-hosted Linux and Kubernetes deployments.

/\* 
  \- Running HAProxy on Linux? See \[Monitor self-hosted HAProxy with OpenTelemetry](/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/self-hosted/).
  \- Running HAProxy on Kubernetes? See \[Monitor HAProxy on Kubernetes with OpenTelemetry](/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/kubernetes/).
  \- For a complete list of collected metrics, see \[HAProxy OTel metrics reference](/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/metrics-reference/).
 \*/

## Why monitor HAProxy with OpenTelemetry [#why-monitor]

Monitor HAProxy to maintain load balancer performance, backend server health, and application reliability. OpenTelemetry provides a standardized, vendor-neutral approach to collect and analyze this data.

### Key benefits

-   **Dimensional metrics**: Rich metadata (proxy name, service name, server address) enables flexible grouping and filtering
-   **Vendor-neutral collection**: Open-source OpenTelemetry standard avoids lock-in and integrates with existing observability pipelines
-   **Flexible collection methods**: Choose between the haproxyreceiver (CSV stats) or Prometheus scraping, deployed via NRDOT or OTel Collector Contrib
-   **Automatic discovery on Kubernetes**: The collector automatically discovers HAProxy pods without manual configuration for each instance
-   **Backend health visibility**: Track backend server status, queue depths, and connection errors across your entire load balancer fleet

### Use cases

Whether you're running HAProxy as a load balancer, reverse proxy, or API gateway, this monitoring helps you:

-   Get notified when backend servers go down
-   Detect when session limits are being reached
-   Identify which frontends are experiencing error spikes
-   Spot latency increases across your server pool

This integration is for high-availability deployments, microservices architectures, and any environment where HAProxy sits on the critical path of user traffic.

## Supported platforms [#supported-platforms]

-   Amazon Linux
-   Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
-   CentOS
-   Ubuntu
-   Debian

## Collection options [#collection-options]

You can collect HAProxy metrics using any of these approaches:

-   **NRDOT Collector** (recommended): New Relic Distribution of OpenTelemetry — automated setup via guided install (self-hosted) or Helm chart (Kubernetes) with pre-configured HAProxy monitoring
-   **OTel Collector Contrib**: Manual setup using the [haproxyreceiver](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/receiver/haproxyreceiver) — collects metrics from the HAProxy stats endpoint
-   **Prometheus Receiver**: For environments already using HAProxy's built-in [Prometheus endpoint](https://www.haproxy.com/blog/haproxy-exposes-a-prometheus-metrics-endpoint) (HAProxy 2.0+)

## Available metrics [#metrics]

The haproxyreceiver collects up to 27 metrics from the HAProxy stats endpoint. Each metric includes dimensional attributes like `haproxy.proxy_name` and `haproxy.service_name` for per-frontend, per-backend, and per-server visibility.

**Key metrics collected:**

-   **Session metrics**: Current sessions, session rates, average session time per frontend/backend/server
-   **Request metrics**: Total requests, request rates, denied requests, request errors, queued requests
-   **Connection metrics**: Connection errors, retries, connection rates, total connections
-   **Throughput metrics**: Bytes in/out per frontend, backend, and individual server
-   **Backend health**: Active/backup server counts, failed health checks, downtime

For complete metrics and attributes reference, see [HAProxy OTel metrics reference](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/metrics-reference/).

## Next steps [#next-steps]

Ready to start monitoring your HAProxy load balancers?

-   [Monitor self-hosted HAProxy with OpenTelemetry](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/self-hosted/) — step-by-step setup for Linux VMs or bare metal
-   [Monitor HAProxy on Kubernetes with OpenTelemetry](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/kubernetes/) — automatic pod discovery for containerized environments
-   [Find and query your HAProxy data](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/integrations/haproxy/find-and-query-data/) — access dashboards, write NRQL queries, and troubleshoot data visibility