AWS Elastic Load Balancing vs DigitalOcean Load Balancers
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of AWS Elastic Load Balancing and DigitalOcean Load Balancers built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
3 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
AWS Elastic Load Balancing 0
DigitalOcean Load Balancers 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | AWS Elastic Load Balancing | DigitalOcean Load Balancers |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Inference | ||
| 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List — AWSELB, us-east-1 ↗
“$0.0225 per Network LoadBalancer-hour (or partial hour)”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs
- Load Balancers Pricing ↗
“Regional pricing starts at $12 per month”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- AWS Price List — AWSELB, us-east-1 ↗
“$0.008 per used Application load balancer capacity unit-ho”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs
- Load Balancers Pricing ↗
“Start with one node and add up to 100 of them, adding or removing nodes as you go.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Elastic Load Balancing pricing ↗
“An LCU contains: 25 new connections per second.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Load Balancers Pricing ↗
“+10,000 requests per second +10,000 simultaneous connections +250 SSL connections per second”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.