AWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Google Cloud Load Balancing
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of AWS Elastic Load Balancing and Google Cloud Load Balancing 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 Google Cloud Load Balancing if…
More than five forwarding rules. The price curve inverts at that point: the first five cost $0.025 an hour each and every rule after is $0.01, so the sixth is 60% cheaper than the fifth and the marginal cost keeps falling.
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.
- Google Cloud Load Balancing: You have one or two rules and want a floor. Five rules cost $0.125 an hour before any traffic is processed, and regional data processing is charged on top by whichever region handles the request.
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
Google Cloud Load Balancing 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | AWS Elastic Load Balancing | Google Cloud Load Balancing |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | $0.025 per hour for each of the first five forwarding rules, then $0.01 an hour for every rule after that — so the sixth rule costs 60% less than the fifth. Regional data processing is charged on top. |
| 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 forwarding rule per hour, with an inverted volume curve: the first five rules are the expensive ones at $0.025 an hour and everything beyond is $0.01. Data processing is charged by the region that handles the traffic, and there are no global data processing charges. |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Uptime SLA | 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. | 99.99% monthly uptime. The load balancing commitment lives inside the Compute Engine SLA rather than on a page of its own — cloud.google.com/load-balancing/sla redirects there. |
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.
- Google Cloud Load Balancing
- $0.025 per hour for each of the first five forwarding rules, then $0.01 an hour for every rule after that — so the sixth rule costs 60% less than the fifth. Regional data processing is charged on top.
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
- Cloud Load Balancing pricing ↗
“First 5 forwarding rules $0.025 / 1 hour Per additional forwarding rule $0.01 / 1 hour”
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.
- Google Cloud Load Balancing
- Per forwarding rule per hour, with an inverted volume curve: the first five rules are the expensive ones at $0.025 an hour and everything beyond is $0.01. Data processing is charged by the region that handles the traffic, and there are no global data processing charges.
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
- Cloud Load Balancing pricing ↗
“There are no global data processing charges. Data processing is charged by the region”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Uptime SLA
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.
99.99% monthly uptime. The load balancing commitment lives inside the Compute Engine SLA rather than on a page of its own — cloud.google.com/load-balancing/sla redirects there.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Elastic Load Balancing Service Level Agreement ↗
“Less than 99.99% but greater than or equal to 99.0%”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs
- Compute Engine Service Level Agreement ↗
“Load balancing >= 99.99%”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs
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 Google Cloud Load Balancing?
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.
Google Cloud Load Balancing: $0.025 per hour for each of the first five forwarding rules, then $0.01 an hour for every rule after that — so the sixth rule costs 60% less than the fifth. Regional data processing is charged on top.
Should I choose AWS Elastic Load Balancing or Google Cloud Load Balancing?
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 Google Cloud Load Balancing if More than five forwarding rules. The price curve inverts at that point: the first five cost $0.025 an hour each and every rule after is $0.01, so the sixth is 60% cheaper than the fifth and the marginal cost keeps falling.