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  1. Stackups
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  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Load Balancer Reverse Proxy
  5. AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) vs Docker Swarm

AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) vs Docker Swarm

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
Stacks12.8K
Followers8.8K
Votes59
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm
Stacks779
Followers990
Votes282

AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) vs Docker Swarm: What are the differences?

Introduction: In this comparison, we will analyze the key differences between AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and Docker Swarm in the context of load balancing and container orchestration.

  1. Managed Service vs Container Orchestrator: AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is a managed service provided by AWS for distributing incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, such as EC2 instances. On the other hand, Docker Swarm is a native clustering and orchestration tool for Docker containers, allowing you to manage a cluster of Docker hosts.

  2. Scalability: ELB can automatically scale its load balancing capacity based on demand, ensuring that your applications can handle varying levels of traffic. Docker Swarm, on the other hand, requires manual scaling of container replicas to handle increased load, which may not be as seamless as ELB's auto-scaling capabilities.

  3. Integration with AWS Services: ELB integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like Auto Scaling, Amazon ECS, and AWS Certificate Manager, providing a comprehensive solution for deploying and managing applications in the AWS cloud. Docker Swarm, while compatible with various cloud providers, may not offer the same level of integration with AWS-specific services.

  4. Load Balancing Algorithms: ELB offers a range of load balancing algorithms such as round robin, least connections, and IP hash, allowing you to customize how traffic is distributed across your application targets. In contrast, Docker Swarm's load balancing capabilities are more limited, primarily using DNS-based round robin to distribute traffic to container replicas.

  5. Monitoring and Logging: AWS ELB provides built-in monitoring and logging features through CloudWatch, allowing you to track key metrics and troubleshoot issues with your load balancers. Docker Swarm, while it offers logging and monitoring plugins, may require additional configuration and setup to achieve the same level of visibility into container orchestration.

Summary: In summary, AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is a managed service for load balancing in the AWS cloud, offering seamless scalability, integration with AWS services, customizable load balancing algorithms, and robust monitoring capabilities. Docker Swarm, on the other hand, is a container orchestrator that requires manual scaling, may lack deep integration with AWS services, and has more limited load balancing options compared to ELB.

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Advice on AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Docker Swarm

Simon
Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

DecidedonGitHubGitHubGitHub PagesGitHub PagesMarkdownMarkdown

Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

  • @{GitHub}|tool:27| (incl. @{GitHub Pages}|tool:683|/@{Markdown}|tool:1147| for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
  • Respectively @{Git}|tool:1046| as revision control system
  • @{SourceTree}|tool:1599| as @{Git}|tool:1046| GUI
  • @{Visual Studio Code}|tool:4202| as IDE
  • @{CircleCI}|tool:190| for continuous integration (automatize development process)
  • @{Prettier}|tool:7035| / @{TSLint}|tool:5561| / @{ESLint}|tool:3337| as code linter
  • @{SonarQube}|tool:2638| as quality gate
  • @{Docker}|tool:586| as container management (incl. @{Docker Compose}|tool:3136| for multi-container application management)
  • @{VirtualBox}|tool:774| for operating system simulation tests
  • @{Kubernetes}|tool:1885| as cluster management for docker containers
  • @{Heroku}|tool:133| for deploying in test environments
  • @{nginx}|tool:1052| as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
  • @{SSLMate}|tool:2752| (using @{OpenSSL}|tool:3091|) for certificate management
  • @{Amazon EC2}|tool:18| (incl. @{Amazon S3}|tool:25|) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
  • @{PostgreSQL}|tool:1028| as preferred database system
  • @{Redis}|tool:1031| as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)

The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:

  • Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
  • Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
  • Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
  • Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
  • Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
  • Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
12.8M views12.8M
Comments
Pavel
Pavel

Jan 27, 2021

Needs adviceonLinuxLinuxWindowsWindowsDockerDocker

Hello, we have a bunch of local hosts (Linux and Windows) where Docker containers are running with bamboo agents on them. Currently, each container is installed as a system service. Each host is set up manually. I want to improve the system by adding some sort of orchestration software that should install, update and check for consistency in my docker containers. I don't need any clouds, all hosts are local. I'd prefer simple solutions. What orchestration system should I choose?

199k views199k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm

With Elastic Load Balancing, you can add and remove EC2 instances as your needs change without disrupting the overall flow of information. If one EC2 instance fails, Elastic Load Balancing automatically reroutes the traffic to the remaining running EC2 instances. If the failed EC2 instance is restored, Elastic Load Balancing restores the traffic to that instance. Elastic Load Balancing offers clients a single point of contact, and it can also serve as the first line of defense against attacks on your network. You can offload the work of encryption and decryption to Elastic Load Balancing, so your servers can focus on their main task.

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Distribution of requests to Amazon EC2 instances (servers) in multiple Availability Zones so that the risk of overloading one single instance is minimized. And if an entire Availability Zone goes offline, Elastic Load Balancing routes traffic to instances in other Availability Zones.;Continuous monitoring of the health of Amazon EC2 instances registered with the load balancer so that requests are sent only to the healthy instances. If an instance becomes unhealthy, Elastic Load Balancing stops sending traffic to that instance and spreads the load across the remaining healthy instances.;Support for end-to-end traffic encryption on those networks that use secure (HTTPS/SSL) connections.;The ability to take over the encryption and decryption work from the Amazon EC2 instances, and manage it centrally on the load balancer.;Support for the sticky session feature, which is the ability to "stick" user sessions to specific Amazon EC2 instances.;Association of the load balancer with your domain name. Because the load balancer is the only computer that is exposed to the Internet, you don’t have to create and manage public domain names for the instances that the load balancer manages. You can point the instance's domain records at the load balancer instead and scale as needed (either adding or removing capacity) without having to update the records with each scaling activity.;When used in an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), support for creation and management of security groups associated with your load balancer to provide additional networking and security options.;Supports use of both the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).
-
Statistics
Stacks
12.8K
Stacks
779
Followers
8.8K
Followers
990
Votes
59
Votes
282
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 48
    Easy
  • 8
    ASG integration
  • 2
    Reliability
  • 1
    Coding
  • 0
    SSL offloading
Pros
  • 55
    Docker friendly
  • 46
    Easy to setup
  • 40
    Standard Docker API
  • 38
    Easy to use
  • 23
    Native
Cons
  • 9
    Low adoption
Integrations
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2
Docker
Docker

What are some alternatives to AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Docker Swarm?

Kubernetes

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

HAProxy

HAProxy

HAProxy (High Availability Proxy) is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Tutum

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Traefik

Traefik

A modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components and configures itself automatically and dynamically.

Codefresh

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

CAST.AI

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

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