Just for completeness sake and probably not useful to many people, HAProxy can serve a limited number of static files by abusing the back-end and error pages. I have done this for landing pages, directory/table of content pages. One just makes a properly configured HTTP page that has the desired HTTP headers embedded in it and then configure it as the error page for a new back-end and use ACL's to direct specific URL's to that back-end. Then just replace any status codes with 200 for that back-end. Probably mostly useful to those with a little hobby site or landing page that needs to give people some static information and the rest of the site is dynamic. This reduces moving parts and reduces the risk of time-wait assassination attacks.

This method is also useful for abusive clients that one still wishes to give an error page to. Based on traffic patterns, drop them in a stick table and route those people to your pre-compressed error page in the unique back-end. It keeps them at the edge of the network.