AWS Elastic Load Balancing
Load balancing software
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- Ease of management
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What is AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is a managed load balancing service on Amazon Web Services that distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets such as EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses. It is used by cloud and platform teams to improve availability and scale for web applications, APIs, and microservices. ELB includes multiple load balancer types (Application, Network, Gateway, and Classic) to support different protocols and performance requirements. It integrates tightly with AWS networking, security, and monitoring services.
Multiple load balancer types
ELB provides Application Load Balancer (L7), Network Load Balancer (L4), Gateway Load Balancer (service insertion), and Classic Load Balancer for legacy use cases. This allows teams to choose based on protocol needs, routing complexity, and performance characteristics. Features such as host/path-based routing and HTTP header handling are available where appropriate. The product family covers common patterns that otherwise require separate software components.
Deep AWS service integration
ELB integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon VPC, AWS Certificate Manager (ACM), and AWS WAF (for supported load balancer types). It works with Auto Scaling and target groups to register and deregister targets as capacity changes. Observability integrates with Amazon CloudWatch metrics and logs (including access logs where supported). These integrations reduce the amount of separate infrastructure required when operating primarily on AWS.
Managed scaling and availability
ELB is delivered as a managed service, so AWS operates the underlying load balancer fleet and control plane. It supports health checks and automatic traffic distribution across healthy targets and (when configured) across multiple Availability Zones. This reduces the operational burden compared with self-managed load balancers that require patching, capacity planning, and failover design. It is commonly used for internet-facing and internal load balancing within VPCs.
AWS-centric portability limits
ELB is designed for AWS environments and depends on AWS-specific constructs such as VPCs, target groups, and AWS-managed certificates. Organizations pursuing multi-cloud or on-prem portability may need an additional abstraction layer or a separate load balancing stack. Migrating configurations to non-AWS environments typically requires re-implementation rather than direct export/import. This can increase switching costs for teams standardizing across heterogeneous infrastructure.
Feature differences by type
Capabilities vary across Application, Network, Gateway, and Classic Load Balancers, and some features are only available on specific types. Teams may need to deploy multiple load balancers to cover different protocol and routing requirements within the same system. This can complicate architecture, operations, and cost management. Legacy deployments using Classic Load Balancer may also face constraints compared to newer types.
Cost and tuning complexity
Pricing depends on load balancer hours and usage-based dimensions (such as capacity units and processed bytes), which can be difficult to forecast for variable traffic patterns. Achieving desired behavior may require tuning timeouts, health checks, cross-zone settings, and connection handling, which differs by load balancer type. Advanced needs (for example, service insertion via Gateway Load Balancer) can add additional components and operational considerations. Cost and configuration complexity can be higher than simpler self-managed setups for small, stable workloads.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go (usage-based)
Free tier/trial: New AWS customers receive AWS Free Tier credits for Elastic Load Balancing: 750 hours/month shared between Classic and Application load balancers, 15 GB data processing for Classic load balancers, and 15 LCUs for Application Load Balancers (time-limited as part of AWS Free Tier/new-customer program). See note about region below.
Example costs (US East / US‑East‑1 examples shown on AWS site):
- Application Load Balancer (ALB): $0.0225 per Application Load Balancer-hour + $0.008 per LCU-hour. LCUs measure dimensions (new connections, active connections, processed bytes, rule evaluations). ALB also supports LCU reservations.
- Network Load Balancer (NLB): $0.0225 per Network Load Balancer-hour + $0.006 per NLCU-hour (protocol-specific dimensions such as new connections, active connections, processed bytes). NLB also supports NLCU reservations.
- Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB): $0.0125 per Gateway Load Balancer-hour + $0.004 per GLCU-hour. Gateway Load Balancer Endpoint (GWLBE) is priced and billed separately: $0.01 per GWLBE-hour + $0.0035 per GB data processed (GWLBE/PrivateLink charges separate).
- Classic Load Balancer (CLB): example shown $0.025 per Classic Load Balancer-hour + $0.008 per GB of data processed (per the US East example on the AWS page).
Notes / billing details (from official AWS page):
- Partial hours are billed as full hours for each load balancer type.
- Data transfer and public IPv4 address charges are billed separately (EC2/VPC Data Transfer & IP charges apply).
- Pricing varies by AWS Region; examples on the page use US‑East (N. Virginia) / US‑East‑1.
- Reserved LCU (capacity unit) options are described (reservation charges and additional usage beyond reservation are billed as shown on the official page).
(Information sourced only from the official AWS Elastic Load Balancing pricing page.)
Seller details
Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Seattle, Washington, USA
2006
Subsidiary
https://aws.amazon.com/
https://x.com/awscloud
https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/
