Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Azure Application Gateway VS Azure Load Balancer

Compare Azure Application Gateway VS Azure Load Balancer and see what are their differences

Azure Application Gateway logo Azure Application Gateway

Manage traffic to your web applications using Azure Application Gateway, a load balancer that features a web application firewall and intelligent layer 7 routing.

Azure Load Balancer logo Azure Load Balancer

Azure Load Balancer delivers high availability and network performance to the applications.
  • Azure Application Gateway Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-05
  • Azure Load Balancer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-13

Azure Application Gateway features and specs

  • Scalability
    Azure Application Gateway can automatically scale up or down based on traffic demands, ensuring application availability and performance without manual intervention.
  • Security Features
    It offers a Web Application Firewall (WAF) that helps protect your applications from common vulnerabilities and attacks, improving the overall security posture.
  • SSL Termination
    By offloading SSL termination to the application gateway, it reduces the web server's computation load, allowing better resource allocation.
  • URL-based Routing
    Supports URL-based routing which allows for more advanced traffic distribution strategies and optimization of backend resources.
  • Multi-Region Redundancy
    Supports configurations for multi-region redundancy, allowing for improved resilience and availability across geographical locations.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Application Gateway

  • Complexity
    Initial setup and configuration can be complex, especially for users who are not familiar with Azure services, potentially leading to increased deployment times.
  • Cost
    Costs can increase significantly with higher traffic volumes and additional features like the Web Application Firewall, impacting the overall IT budget.
  • Latency
    There might be additional latency introduced due to the routing and processing of requests through the gateway, which can affect application performance.
  • Limited Customization
    Compared to some other solutions, Azure Application Gateway offers limited customization options for specific routing and traffic management scenarios.
  • Dependency on Azure Region
    Performance and availability can be impacted by the Azure region where the application gateway is deployed, leading to potential issues if that region experiences problems.

Azure Load Balancer features and specs

  • Scalability
    Azure Load Balancer automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as virtual machines, scaling as needed to handle high amounts of traffic efficiently.
  • High Availability
    With a design for high availability and redundancy, Azure Load Balancer ensures that applications remain accessible even during hardware or software failures.
  • Geographic Distribution
    Azure Load Balancer can be configured for global distribution, enabling traffic to be efficiently routed to the nearest data center for minimized latency.
  • Integration with Azure Ecosystem
    It seamlessly integrates with other Azure services, providing a cohesive experience and ease of management within the Azure environment.
  • Security
    Offers network address translation (NAT) and provides features like port forwarding and secure internal communications to enhance application security.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Load Balancer

  • Complexity in Configuration
    Setting up and managing load balancers can be complex, especially for organizations new to cloud infrastructure, requiring a good understanding of networking principles.
  • Cost Considerations
    While Azure Load Balancer offers significant capabilities, these come at a cost which might add up, especially when scaling large applications.
  • Learning Curve
    For teams not already using Azure, there could be a learning curve associated with understanding how to effectively use and integrate Azure Load Balancer.
  • Limited Protocol Support
    Azure Load Balancer primarily supports TCP and UDP protocols, which might be a limitation for applications needing support for other protocols.

Azure Application Gateway videos

Azure Application Gateways

Azure Load Balancer videos

Azure Networking - #14 - Azure Load Balancer

More videos:

  • Review - Azure Load Balancer Deep Dive
  • Tutorial - Azure Load Balancer Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure Application Gateway and Azure Load Balancer)
Web And Application Servers
Web Servers
49 49%
51% 51
Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy
Network & Admin
67 67%
33% 33

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Azure Load Balancer might be a bit more popular than Azure Application Gateway. We know about 1 link to it since March 2021 and only 1 link to Azure Application Gateway. 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.

Azure Application Gateway mentions (1)

  • Free and Built-In TLS/SSL certificates in Azure
    It should be easy and free to enable SSL/TSL certificates in Azure. This was the number one question on UserVoice feedback. Microsoft implemented this Built-In free certificate option for some services, like Azure CDN, Front Door, Application Gateway, etc. When you put one of those services in front of your web site (like what I did with this blog), you can enable an auto-renewable Built-In certificate for free. - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago

Azure Load Balancer mentions (1)

  • Websites and services crashing has been an issue for a long time.
    That's why there are load balancers and many cloud offerings let you scale on demand. Source: almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure Application Gateway and Azure Load Balancer, you can also consider the following products

nginx - A high performance free open source web server powering busiest sites on the Internet.

Google Cloud Load Balancing - Google Cloud Load Balancer enables users to scale their applications on Google Compute Engine.

AWS Elastic Load Balancing - Amazon ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances in the cloud.

Traefik - Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy

Azure Traffic Manager - Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager allows you to control the distribution of user traffic for service endpoints in different datacenters.

Citrix NetScaler - Citrix ADC is an industry-leading application delivery controller, L4-7 load balancer, and GSLB that ensures 100% uptime and unmatched security across devices and locations.