# AWS Elastic Load Balancing vs DigitalOcean Load Balancers

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/aws-elb-vs-digitalocean-load-balancer/

Every value below is read from AWS Elastic Load Balancing's and DigitalOcean Load Balancers's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | AWS Elastic Load Balancing | DigitalOcean Load Balancers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid plan | $0.0225 per load balancer-hour in us-east-1, charged for partial hours too, plus capacity units on top. There is no plan and no free allowance for the balancer itself — it bills from the hour it exists, whether traffic arrives or not. | $12 a month for a regional load balancer with one node. The only member of this category priced monthly rather than hourly, and the only one where the entry price is a round number rather than a fraction of a cent. |
| Pricing model | Per load balancer-hour plus per capacity-unit-hour, and the capacity rate depends on which balancer you run: $0.008 per LCU-hour for an Application Load Balancer, $0.006 for a Network Load Balancer, and $0.008 per GB processed on the older Classic balancers. Reserving capacity in advance is cheaper per unit than using it on demand. | Per node, added and removed as you go, up to 100 of them. Each node is a fixed quantum of capacity rather than a meter, so the bill steps rather than tracking traffic — which makes it forecastable in a way per-hour and per-GB pricing is not, and wasteful if a node sits half-used. |
| Rate limits | One capacity unit covers 25 new connections per second, 3,000 active connections per minute (1,500 with Mutual TLS), and 1 GB per hour to EC2, container or IP targets — 0.4 GB per hour to Lambda. You are charged only on whichever of those dimensions you use most, not on all of them, and the first 10 rule evaluations are free. | 10,000 requests per second per node, alongside 10,000 simultaneous connections and 250 SSL connections per second. Capacity is bought in these blocks, so the way to more throughput is another node rather than a larger bill for the same one. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: $0.0225 per load balancer-hour in us-east-1, charged for partial hours too, plus capacity units on top. There is no plan and no free allowance for the balancer itself — it bills from the hour it exists, whether traffic arrives or not. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSELB/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- DigitalOcean Load Balancers: $12 a month for a regional load balancer with one node. The only member of this category priced monthly rather than hourly, and the only one where the entry price is a round number rather than a fraction of a cent. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/load-balancers))

### Pricing model

- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: Per load balancer-hour plus per capacity-unit-hour, and the capacity rate depends on which balancer you run: $0.008 per LCU-hour for an Application Load Balancer, $0.006 for a Network Load Balancer, and $0.008 per GB processed on the older Classic balancers. Reserving capacity in advance is cheaper per unit than using it on demand. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSELB/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- DigitalOcean Load Balancers: Per node, added and removed as you go, up to 100 of them. Each node is a fixed quantum of capacity rather than a meter, so the bill steps rather than tracking traffic — which makes it forecastable in a way per-hour and per-GB pricing is not, and wasteful if a node sits half-used. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/load-balancers))

### Rate limits

- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: One capacity unit covers 25 new connections per second, 3,000 active connections per minute (1,500 with Mutual TLS), and 1 GB per hour to EC2, container or IP targets — 0.4 GB per hour to Lambda. You are charged only on whichever of those dimensions you use most, not on all of them, and the first 10 rule evaluations are free. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/pricing/))
- DigitalOcean Load Balancers: 10,000 requests per second per node, alongside 10,000 simultaneous connections and 250 SSL connections per second. Capacity is bought in these blocks, so the way to more throughput is another node rather than a larger bill for the same one. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/load-balancers))

## Which should you choose?

Pick AWS Elastic Load Balancing if Balancing traffic that already lives in AWS, where the balancer reaches EC2, containers, Lambda and IP targets natively. $0.0225 an hour plus capacity, billed only on whichever dimension you actually use most rather than on all of them at once.

Pick DigitalOcean Load Balancers if Knowing the bill in advance. $12 a month buys one node and a node is a fixed 10,000 requests per second — capacity that steps rather than meters, which is the only genuinely forecastable pricing in this category.

Consider something else: AWS Elastic Load Balancing — You want a bill you can forecast. The capacity unit is four dimensions at once — connections per second, active connections, rules and gigabytes — and the one that governs your charge can change with traffic shape rather than traffic volume.

Consider something else: DigitalOcean Load Balancers — Your traffic is spiky or small. A node is bought whole, so half a node of traffic costs a whole node, and the ceiling is 100 nodes rather than an elastic limit.

## Documented by only one

- Egress over allowance: AWS Elastic Load Balancing: $0.008 per GB processed on a Classic Load Balancer. Application and Network balancers do not bill data separately — throughput folds into the capacity unit instead, at 1 GB per hour per LCU to EC2 targets — so there is one published per-GB rate here and it applies to the oldest of the three products.
- Regions: DigitalOcean Load Balancers: 16 datacentres carry Load Balancers: NYC1, NYC2, NYC3, AMS3, SFO2, SFO3, SGP1, LON1, FRA1, TOR1, BLR1, SYD1, ATL1, RIC1, MKC1 and MEM1. Availability is published per product per datacentre rather than assumed from the region list.
- Uptime SLA: AWS Elastic Load Balancing: 99.99% monthly uptime for a Multi-AZ Load Balancer — one spread across two or more availability zones. A balancer in a single zone is not covered by that commitment.
- Multi-region replication: DigitalOcean Load Balancers: Three types are offered — Regional, Global and Network — with the $12 entry price attached to the Regional one. The page names the three but prices only Regional here.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: AWS Elastic Load Balancing or DigitalOcean Load Balancers?**

AWS Elastic Load Balancing: $0.0225 per load balancer-hour in us-east-1, charged for partial hours too, plus capacity units on top. There is no plan and no free allowance for the balancer itself — it bills from the hour it exists, whether traffic arrives or not.
DigitalOcean Load Balancers: $12 a month for a regional load balancer with one node. The only member of this category priced monthly rather than hourly, and the only one where the entry price is a round number rather than a fraction of a cent.

**Should I choose AWS Elastic Load Balancing or DigitalOcean Load Balancers?**

Pick AWS Elastic Load Balancing if Balancing traffic that already lives in AWS, where the balancer reaches EC2, containers, Lambda and IP targets natively. $0.0225 an hour plus capacity, billed only on whichever dimension you actually use most rather than on all of them at once.
Pick DigitalOcean Load Balancers if Knowing the bill in advance. $12 a month buys one node and a node is a fixed 10,000 requests per second — capacity that steps rather than meters, which is the only genuinely forecastable pricing in this category.