# Cloudflare Load Balancing vs DigitalOcean Load Balancers

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/cloudflare-load-balancing-vs-digitalocean-load-balancer/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Cloudflare Load Balancing | DigitalOcean Load Balancers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid plan | From $5 a month, sold as an add-on activated on an existing Cloudflare plan rather than as a standalone service. The cheapest entry in this category. | $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 | A monthly add-on price on top of a Cloudflare plan, not a meter. Nothing here is billed per hour, per rule or per node — the distinction from the three cloud-native balancers, all of which charge for the resource existing. | 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. |
| Multi-region replication | Vendor-neutral by design: traffic is balanced between AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise servers, with origin health monitored from multiple points across Cloudflare’s network. The other three members balance traffic only inside the cloud that sells them. | 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. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Cloudflare Load Balancing: From $5 a month, sold as an add-on activated on an existing Cloudflare plan rather than as a standalone service. The cheapest entry in this category. ([source](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/))
- 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

- Cloudflare Load Balancing: A monthly add-on price on top of a Cloudflare plan, not a meter. Nothing here is billed per hour, per rule or per node — the distinction from the three cloud-native balancers, all of which charge for the resource existing. ([source](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/))
- 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))

### Multi-region replication

- Cloudflare Load Balancing: Vendor-neutral by design: traffic is balanced between AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise servers, with origin health monitored from multiple points across Cloudflare’s network. The other three members balance traffic only inside the cloud that sells them. ([source](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/load-balancing/))
- 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. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/load-balancers))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Cloudflare Load Balancing if Balancing across clouds you do not own. It is the only member here that markets balancing between AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise servers, and at $5 a month it is also the cheapest entry.

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: Cloudflare Load Balancing — You need to know what it costs at your volume. The price is quoted only as a starting figure on a plans page, and it is an add-on to a Cloudflare plan rather than a service you can buy on its own.

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

- Credit card to start: Cloudflare Load Balancing: Yes
- 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.
- Rate limits: 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Cloudflare Load Balancing or DigitalOcean Load Balancers?**

Cloudflare Load Balancing: From $5 a month, sold as an add-on activated on an existing Cloudflare plan rather than as a standalone service. The cheapest entry in this category.
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 Cloudflare Load Balancing or DigitalOcean Load Balancers?**

Pick Cloudflare Load Balancing if Balancing across clouds you do not own. It is the only member here that markets balancing between AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise servers, and at $5 a month it is also the cheapest entry.
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.