Load Balancer | Application Gateway | Traffic Manager | Front Door | |
Service | Network load balancer. | Web traffic load balancer. | DNS-based traffic load balancer. | Global application delivery |
Network Protocols | Layer 4 (TCP or UDP) | Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) | Layer 7 (DNS) | Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) |
Type | Internal and Public | Standard and WAF | – | Standard and Premium |
Routing | Hash-based, | Path-based | Performance, Weighted, Priority, Geographic, MultiValue, Subnet | Latency, Priority, Weighted, Session Affinity |
Global/Regional Service | Global | Regional | Global | Global |
Recommended Traffic | Non-HTTP(S) | HTTP(S) | Non-HTTP(S) | HTTP(S) |
Endpoints | NIC (VM/VMSS), IP address | IP address/FQDN, Virtual machine/VMSS, App services | Cloud service, App service/slot, Public IP address | App service, Cloud service, Storage, Application Gateway, API Management, Public IP address, Traffic Manager, Custom Host |
Endpoint Monitoring | Health probes | Health probes | HTTP/HTTPS GET requests | Health probes |
Redundancy | Zone redundant and Zonal | Zone redundant | Resilient to regional failures | Resilient to regional failures |
SSL/TLS Termination | – | Supported | – | Supported |
Web Application Firewall | – | Supported | – | Supported |
Sticky Sessions | Supported | Supported | – | Supported |
VNet Peering | Supported | Supported | – | – |
SKU | Basic and Standard | Standard and WAF (v1 & v2) | – | Standard and Premium |
Pricing | Standard Load Balancer – charged based on the number of rules and processed data. | Charged based on Application Gateway type, processed data, outbound data transfers, and SKU. | Charged per DNS queries, health checks, measurements, and processed data points. | Charged based on outbound/inbound data transfers, and incoming requests from client to Front Door POPs. |
Azure Load Balancer vs Application Gateway vs Traffic Manager vs Front Door Resources:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-overview
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/application-gateway/overview
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/traffic-manager/traffic-manager-overview