Hetzner Load Balancer vs AWS Application Load Balancer
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Hetzner Load Balancer and AWS Application Load Balancer.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Hetzner Load Balancer
0 reviews
4.0/5
AWS Application Load Balancer
0 reviews
AWS Application Load Balancer is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.9). Hetzner's managed load balancer distributes TCP and HTTP(S) traffic across Hetzner Cloud and dedicated root server targets, with configurable health checks, SSL termination and sticky sessions. From €7.49/month, hourly billed. AWS ALB provides Layer 7 load balancing with host and path-based routing, content-based routing, WebSocket support, and gRPC support. Integrates with ECS, EKS, and Lambda.
Hetzner Load Balancer Managed load balancing with Layer 4/7 support and auto-scaling integration |  AWS Application Load Balancer Layer 7 load balancer with path-based routing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | usage-based |
| Starting price | From $7.49/mo | From $0.0225/mo✓ |
| Best for | Teams already running Hetzner Cloud or Hetzner dedicated servers who need a cheap, managed, well-documented entry point with TLS termination and health checks. | AWS teams running microservices or containers who need Layer 7 routing with WAF integration and a contractual 99.99% Multi-AZ uptime commitment |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | — |
| RAM | — | — |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | 20 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.99% |
| Data-center count | 6 | — |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Falkenstein (DE)Nuremberg (DE)Helsinki (FI)Ashburn, VA (US)Hillsboro, OR (US)Singapore (SG) | 39 AWS regions / 124 AZs across NA, SA, EU, ME, AF, APAC, ANZ |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optioneu datacenterus datacenter | api accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Hetzner Load Balancer → | Visit AWS Application Load Balancer → | |
Hetzner Load Balancer
Pros
- + Cheap for a managed load balancer: LB11 at €7.49/month with 20 TB EU included traffic and a Primary IPv4 included
- + Targets both Hetzner Cloud servers and dedicated root servers over public or private IPv4
- + Solid HTTP feature set: TLS termination with managed certificates, sticky sessions, HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect, proxy protocol
- + Per-service health checks (HTTP/HTTPS/TCP) with configurable interval, timeout, retries and expected responses
- + Hourly billing with monthly cap, six locations across four network zones, first-class API/Terraform/Kubernetes integration
Cons
- - Only Round Robin and Least Connections — no IP-hash, weighting, or L7 path-based routing rules
- - No request logging at all; no WAF or bot management; no built-in autoscaling
- - HTTPS services forward plain HTTP to targets; end-to-end TLS requires a TCP service and loses HTTP features
- - Hetzner targets only (no multi-cloud or on-prem backends); load balancers are bound to a single location
- - No product-level SLA or credits and no published throughput figures per plan
AWS Application Load Balancer
Pros
- + Content-based routing (host, path, header, method) with HTTP/2, gRPC and WebSocket support
- + 99.99% Multi-AZ SLA with explicit 10/30/100% service credits — the strongest published in this category
- + Native IPv6, AWS WAF at the listener, Shield Standard DDoS protection at no extra charge
- + Deep ECS/EKS/Lambda/Auto Scaling integration with no glue code
Cons
- - LCU metering is hard to forecast — bills can double when traffic dimensions shift
- - An idle ALB still bills about $16.42/month before any traffic or data transfer charges
- - Requires AWS-specific knowledge (VPC, target groups, security groups, WAF rule groups)
- - Routing configuration does not port to other clouds — real vendor lock-in
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