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AWS Elastic Load Balancing review

#1 of 31 in Load Balancing SoftwareLoad Balancer Services

Broad Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing for AWS production environments.

9.3/10Editor score
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AWS Elastic Load Balancing9.3 Visit AWS ELB

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

AWS Elastic Load Balancing is a managed cloud service that distributes incoming traffic across registered targets in one or more Availability Zones. It is designed for AWS-native web applications, APIs, container workloads, network services, and virtual network appliances. Application Load Balancer handles HTTP, HTTPS, and gRPC traffic with content-based routing, while Network Load Balancer supports TCP, UDP, and TLS. Gateway Load Balancer supports virtual appliances, and Classic Load Balancer covers legacy workloads.

Its strongest fit is an AWS environment that needs traffic distribution alongside native compute, networking, deployment, certificate, security, and monitoring services. Integrations include Amazon EC2, Amazon ECS, AWS Auto Scaling, AWS CloudFormation, AWS Certificate Manager, AWS CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon Route 53, and AWS WAF. Health checks route traffic only to healthy targets, while TLS termination, certificate management, sticky sessions, logging, metrics, and CloudTrail integration support common production requirements.

Pricing is paid and usage-based. The AWS Free Tier provides included usage for eligible new AWS customers, but it is time-limited rather than a permanent free plan. Application Load Balancer uses an hourly running charge plus an LCU usage charge; Network Load Balancer uses an hourly running charge plus an NLCU usage charge; Gateway Load Balancer uses an hourly running charge plus a GLCU usage charge; and Classic Load Balancer uses an hourly running charge plus a data transfer charge. Choose it for broad AWS integration and multiple traffic layers. Teams seeking a fixed-price service or working outside the AWS ecosystem should consider another option.

AWS Elastic Load Balancing pros and cons

  • Where it wins
    • Supports Layer 4, Layer 7, and gateway load balancing
    • Automatic scaling, health checks, and Availability Zone high availability
    • Deep integrations across AWS compute, networking, and observability services
  • Where it doesn't
    • Usage-based pricing varies by AWS Region and traffic dimensions
    • The AWS Free Tier is limited to eligible new AWS customers
    • Classic Load Balancer is intended for legacy workloads

AWS Elastic Load Balancing fact sheet, pricing and score →

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