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AWS CloudFormation VS Application Load Balance

Compare AWS CloudFormation VS Application Load Balance and see what are their differences

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AWS CloudFormation logo AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators an easy way to create and manage a...

Application Load Balance logo Application Load Balance

Automatically distribute incoming traffic across multiple targets using an Application Load Balancer.
  • AWS CloudFormation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-22
  • Application Load Balance Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-05

AWS CloudFormation features and specs

  • Infrastructure as Code
    CloudFormation allows you to define your infrastructure using code or templates, promoting version control, reviewability, and collaborative planning.
  • Automated Provisioning
    It automates the provisioning and updating of infrastructure, reducing the manual intervention required and minimizing human errors.
  • Consistency and Repeatability
    Ensures consistent configurations by deploying the same template multiple times across different environments, eliminating configuration drift.
  • Integration with Other AWS Services
    Tightly integrated with other AWS services, allowing for comprehensive infrastructure management, security policies, monitoring and logging.
  • Scalability and Flexibility
    Facilitates easy scaling and modifying of resources according to the application requirements without significant downtime.

Possible disadvantages of AWS CloudFormation

  • Complexity
    Large templates can become complex and difficult to manage, making troubleshooting and updating challenging.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires time and effort to learn and master, especially for newcomers to AWS or Infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts.
  • Limited Cross-Platform Support
    Primarily tailored for AWS services, with limited support for managing infrastructure on other cloud platforms.
  • State Management
    Managing the state of your infrastructure can be complex, as creating or updating resources is highly dependent on the current state of your stack.
  • Debugging Issues
    Error messages and stack traces can sometimes be cryptic, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of deployment failures.

Application Load Balance features and specs

  • Layer 7 Processing
    Application Load Balancer operates at the application layer (Layer 7), allowing it to make routing decisions based on advanced content-based rules, such as the HTTP headers, request URL, and query string.
  • Advanced Routing
    ALB supports dynamic host-based and path-based routing, enabling requests to be dispatched to different backend services based on the URL pattern or the host domain, which is particularly useful for microservices architectures.
  • WebSocket and HTTP/2 Support
    Supports sticky sessions and WebSocket, allowing for long-lived sessions and bidirectional communication between clients and servers. It also supports HTTP/2, providing improved performance over HTTP/1.1.
  • Integrated Security Features
    ALB integrates with AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) to secure applications and protect against common web exploits. It also supports TLS offloading, simplifying encryption management.
  • Monitoring and Logging
    Offers detailed CloudWatch metrics and logs to monitor traffic patterns, latency, and other critical operational details. This helps in proactively troubleshooting and optimizing performance.

Possible disadvantages of Application Load Balance

  • Complex Configuration
    Setting up and configuring ALB might be more complex compared to Network Load Balancers or Classic Load Balancers, especially with intricate routing and security rules.
  • Higher Costs
    Application Load Balancers can be more expensive due to advanced features and capabilities, particularly when handling high traffic levels, compared to simpler load balancing solutions.
  • Limited Protocol Support
    ALB is primarily designed for HTTP/HTTPS traffic and may not be suitable if your application needs to handle TCP/UDP-based protocols directly.
  • Performance Overhead
    Operating at Layer 7 can introduce slight latency due to the additional processing required for content-based routing and SSL termination.

Analysis of AWS CloudFormation

Overall verdict

  • Good

Why this product is good

  • AWS CloudFormation can be a powerful tool for managing infrastructure as code, allowing you to model and set up your Amazon Web Services resources so that you can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on your applications. It provides a consistent, repeatable process for provisioning infrastructure, improves change management, enhances resource tracking, and reduces the possibility of human errors. Additionally, it integrates seamlessly with other AWS services and enables the deployment of infrastructure through code, which can be version controlled, tested, and automated.

Recommended for

  • Organizations that heavily utilize AWS services and wish to manage resources through a codified approach
  • Software teams that implement CI/CD pipelines and require infrastructure code to be included in those pipelines
  • DevOps teams striving for automation, consistency, and scalability in their cloud infrastructure management
  • Developers and IT professionals who need to manage complex infrastructures or regularly spin up and tear down environments

AWS CloudFormation videos

What is AWS Cloudformation? Pros and Cons?

More videos:

  • Demo - AWS CloudFormation Tutorial | AWS CloudFormation Demo | AWS Tutorial | AWS Training | Edureka
  • Tutorial - AWS CloudFormation Template Tutorial

Application Load Balance videos

AWS ALB | AWS Application Load Balancer | What is Application Load Balancer AWS | Intellipaat

More videos:

  • Review - Step by Step Instructions to setup Application Load Balancer | what is AWS Application Load Balancer

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS CloudFormation and Application Load Balance)
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
70 70%
30% 30
Continuous Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Hosting
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare AWS CloudFormation and Application Load Balance

AWS CloudFormation Reviews

5 Best DevSecOps Tools in 2023
There are multiple providers for Infrastructure as Code such as AWS CloudFormation, RedHat Ansible, HashiCorp Terraform, Puppet, Chef, and others. It is advised to research each to determine what is best for any given situation since each has pros and cons. Some of these also are not completely free while others are. There are also some that are specific to a particular...
Do not use AWS CloudFormation
CloudFormation being a layer of indirection makes it difficult to work with in multi-region/multi-account scenarios. With CloudFormation you have to create Stack Sets and IAM policies that allow the CloudFormation service to impersonate other roles. The prerequisite steps you have to take to use CloudFormation across multiple accounts also must be taken just to have...
Why we use Terraform and not Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, or CloudFormation
Of course, there are downsides to declarative languages too. Without access to a full programming language, your expressive power is limited. For example, some types of infrastructure changes, such as a rolling, zero-downtime deployment, are hard to express in purely declarative terms. Similarly, without the ability to do โ€œlogicโ€ (e.g. if-statements, loops), creating...

Application Load Balance Reviews

We have no reviews of Application Load Balance yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS CloudFormation should be more popular than Application Load Balance. It has been mentiond 125 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AWS CloudFormation mentions (125)

  • From Code to Cloud in Minutes: How AWS Amplify Supercharges Modern App Development
    When you deploy a cloud sandbox, Amplify creates an AWSโ€ฏCloudFormation stack following the naming convention of amplify--<$(whoami)>-sandbox in your AWS account with the resources configured in your amplify/ folder. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • AWS Lamba & RDS Proxy
    Getting everything to work with CloudFormation and using best practices took me a while as a different setting could completely lock up the creation of a database. I also ran into issues where the RDS Proxy was created and had no errors in the console but it turned out that, using CLI tools, the network config was broken which was the reason I couldn't connect. To save you from this pain, I created a demo that... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • What is an AWS CloudFormation Template?
    CloudFormation is an IaC AWS-native service that helps you model and configure your resources declaratively. Using CloudFormation, you can manage and operate your AWS infrastructure efficiently, so you can spend less time managing infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Master Secure File Uploads to AWS S3 in Node.js with Express and Multer
    Basic knowledge of AWS and CloudFormation. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • AWS Serverless Security: Preventing HTTP Flood DDoS Attack
    AWS WAF Security Automations use AWS CloudFormation to quickly configure AWS WAF rules that help block these common types of attacks:. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
View more

Application Load Balance mentions (23)

  • Authenticating users in the load balancer with Cognito
    Say that we have an application running behind a public-facing Application Load Balancer (ALB). The load balancer's target can be any supported target, including ECS containers, EC2 instances or even Lambda functions. Because the application is only available to authenticated users, we want to find a solution to identify them. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • A Practical Guide To Deploying A Complex, Production Level, Three-tier Architecture On AWS
    The Load balancer is the entry point to the application. The Application Load Balancer, residing in the presentation layer, will route traffic through the AutoScaling Group to logic-tier instances residing in the logic layer. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • The RoboNet Artificial Media Protocol - How a new internet protocol can make AI regulation more human
    Eg. AWS can have their Load Balancer tuned for OSI layer 7 rules for ramp content, exactly what everyone would need to redirect RAMP headers/signatures/etc straight into its proper routes/servers. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Creating Application Load Balancer rules for fast feature stack deployments
    The service in question uses ECS Fargate behind a private Application Load Balancer (ALB). The engineering team placed an HTTP API Gateway before the ALB that performs the authentication. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Introduction to Cloud Load-Balancers
    What is an Application Load Balancer? Https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/introduction.html. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS CloudFormation and Application Load Balance, you can also consider the following products

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

Amazon API Gateway - Create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

Bamboo - Bamboo is a continuous integration and deployment tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow.

Amazon Route 53 - Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable DNS web service.

Terraform - Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.