# AWS Application Load Balancer: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 14 judge labels across 1 category by 10 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-application-load-balancer

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Load balancers](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/index.md) | 4% | 7 | 14% | 14 |

## What the models said for it

- "I'd recommend starting with AWS ALB or Azure Load Balancer (depending on your cloud provider)" (Claude Haiku 4.5, Load balancers)
- "AWS-centric company: AWS Application Load Balancer for web apps" (GPT-5.4 mini, Load balancers)
- "Cloud-first, mostly HTTP(S) APIs, limited ops staff | AWS ALB, Azure Application Gateway, Google Cloud Load Balancing" (MiniMax M2.5, Load balancers)
- "Best for Cloud-Native Infrastructure: AWS ALB / Azure Application Gateway / GCP Load Balancing" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, Load balancers)

## And against it

- "AWS ALB is unsuitable for workloads requiring L4 forwarding, ultra-low-latency pass-through, or non-HTTP protocols; use NLB or the appropriate L4 service instead." (Perplexity Sonar, Load balancers)
- "ALB is not the right choice when the workload is non-HTTP (use NLB)" (Muse Glimmer 30B, Load balancers)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named AWS Application Load Balancer, from 31 of the 51 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- aws.amazon.com: 14 (its own site)
- loadbalancer.org: 11
- g2.com: 10
- haproxy.com: 10
- costbench.com: 9
- gane.ai/index: 8
- github.com: 8
- spotsaas.com: 8
- f5.com: 7
- softwareadvice.com: 7

### Pages cited

- https://loadbalancer.org/blog/whats-the-best-cloud-load-balancer: 8
- https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/pricing: 6
- https://spotsaas.com/list/load-balancing-software/for-small-business: 6
- https://g2.com/discussions/which-load-balancing-platforms-have-the-clearest-pricing-and-no-surprise-per-request-or-bandwidth-overage-charges-for-a-company-that-has-been-burned-by-unpredictable-costs-before: 5
- https://softwareadvice.com/load-balancing: 5
- https://contabo.com/blog/best-open-source-load-balancers: 4
- https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/enterprise: 4
- https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/smb: 4

## In its own words

What AWS Application Load Balancer's own pages state, read 2026-10-05. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: Ideal for advanced load balancing of HTTP and HTTPS traffic, Application Load Balancer provides advanced request routing targeted at delivery of modern application architectures, including microservices and container-based applications. (https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/application-load-balancer)
- For: modern application architectures, including microservices and container-based applications (https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/application-load-balancer)
- Price stated: The hourly rate for the use of an Application Load Balancer is 10% lower than the cost of a Classic Load Balancer. Billing for LCU usage is fractional, and is charged at $0.008 per LCU per hour. (https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-application-load-balancer)
- Hosting: all commercial AWS regions

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.