Vultr Load Balancer vs AWS Application Load Balancer
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Vultr Load Balancer and AWS Application Load Balancer.
Quick Verdict
3.5/5
Vultr Load Balancer
0 reviews
4.0/5
AWS Application Load Balancer
0 reviews
AWS Application Load Balancer is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.5). Vultr Load Balancer distributes traffic across Vultr instances in any of their 33 global regions. Layer 4 (TCP/UDP) with configurable health checks and automatic failover. No SSL termination — TLS must be terminated at the backend. Hourly billing at $0.015/hour. 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.
Vultr Load Balancer Managed Layer 4 load balancer across 33 global regions |  AWS Application Load Balancer Layer 7 load balancer with path-based routing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.5 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | usage-based |
| Starting price | From $10/mo | From $0.0225/mo✓ |
| Best for | Teams already on Vultr who want managed failover and health-checked traffic distribution for a single-region cluster and handle TLS on their backends | AWS teams running microservices or containers who need Layer 7 routing with WAF integration and a contractual 99.99% Multi-AZ uptime commitment |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | 39 AWS regions / 124 AZs across NA, SA, EU, ME, AF, APAC, ANZ |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billingmanaged optioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | api accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Vultr Load Balancer → | Visit AWS Application Load Balancer → | |
Vultr Load Balancer
Pros
- + Fully managed with built-in health checks and automatic failover — no balancer VM to patch
- + Simple pricing: from $10/month ($0.015/hour), and bandwidth is charged on attached instances only
- + Available in all 33 Vultr regions, with optional global routing to the nearest healthy server
- + Full API/CLI support, so it fits Terraform and Ansible workflows
- + Works with any TCP/UDP application: web, APIs, game servers, database pools
Cons
- - No SSL termination despite marketing language about certificates — TLS must be handled at the backend
- - Layer 4 only: no path-based routing, header rules, WAF, or rate limiting
- - Balances Vultr instances only, in the same region — no hybrid or multi-provider backends
- - Price varies by data center without a published per-region table
- - DDoS mitigation is not part of the product; it is handled at Vultr's infrastructure level or as a paid add-on
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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