AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) vs DigitalOcean Load Balancer: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this markdown, we will discuss the key differences between AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and DigitalOcean Load Balancer.

1. Scalability: AWS Elastic Load Balancing is highly scalable and can handle millions of requests per second, making it suitable for large-scale applications. On the other hand, DigitalOcean Load Balancer has some limitations in terms of scalability and may not be the best choice for high-traffic applications.

2. Availability Zones: AWS Elastic Load Balancing allows distributing traffic across multiple availability zones, providing high availability and fault tolerance. In contrast, DigitalOcean Load Balancer does not have multi-region or multi-availability zone capabilities, which can impact the reliability of applications in case of a failure.

3. Pricing: AWS Elastic Load Balancing has a more complex pricing structure, where you pay for the number of Load Balancer hours and the amount of data processed. It also includes additional costs for features like SSL termination. On the other hand, DigitalOcean Load Balancer has a simpler pricing model, charging a fixed fee per hour, regardless of the amount of data or features used.

4. Integration with Other Services: AWS Elastic Load Balancing integrates well with other AWS services, such as Auto Scaling and CloudWatch, allowing you to scale your application based on demand and monitor its performance. DigitalOcean Load Balancer has limited integration options and may require additional manual configuration to achieve similar functionality.

5. Advanced Routing Features: AWS Elastic Load Balancing offers advanced routing features, such as path-based routing and weighted routing, allowing you to route traffic to different backend services based on specific criteria. DigitalOcean Load Balancer has a simpler routing mechanism and does not provide such advanced routing capabilities.

6. Load Balancer Types: AWS Elastic Load Balancing offers different types of Load Balancers, such as Classic Load Balancer, Application Load Balancer, and Network Load Balancer, each with its specific use cases and features. DigitalOcean Load Balancer, on the other hand, provides a single type of Load Balancer that may not be suitable for all types of applications.

In Summary, AWS Elastic Load Balancing is more scalable, offers multi-region and multi-availability zone capabilities, has a more complex pricing structure, integrates well with other AWS services, provides advanced routing features, and offers different types of Load Balancers compared to DigitalOcean Load Balancer.