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Important
On September 30, 2025, Basic Load Balancer will be retired. For more information, see the official announcement. If you are currently using Basic Load Balancer, make sure to upgrade to Standard Load Balancer prior to the retirement date. For guidance on upgrading, visit Upgrading from Basic Load Balancer - Guidance.
Azure Load Balancer has three stock-keeping units (SKUs).
SKU comparison
Azure Load Balancer has three stock-keeping units (SKUs) - Basic, Standard, and Gateway. Each SKU is catered towards a specific scenario and has differences in scale, features, and pricing.
To compare and understand the differences between Basic and Standard SKU, see the following table.
| Standard Load Balancer | Basic Load Balancer | |
|---|---|---|
| Scenario | Equipped for load-balancing network layer traffic when high performance and ultra-low latency is needed. Routes traffic within and across regions, and to availability zones for high resiliency. | Equipped for small-scale applications that don't need high availability or redundancy. Not compatible with availability zones. |
| Backend type | IP based, NIC based | NIC based |
| Protocol | TCP, UDP | TCP, UDP |
| Backend pool endpoints | Any virtual machines or virtual machine scale sets in a single virtual network | Virtual machines in a single availability set or virtual machine scale set |
| Health probes | TCP, HTTP, HTTPS | TCP, HTTP |
| Health probe down behavior | TCP connections stay alive on an instance probe down and on all probes down. | TCP connections stay alive on an instance probe down. All TCP connections end when all probes are down. |
| Availability Zones | Zone-redundant, zonal, or non-zonal frontend IP configurations can be used for inbound and outbound traffic | Not available |
| Type | Internal, Public | Internal, Public |
| Frontend IP configuration | When using a Public Standard Load Balancer, the SKU of the public IP must be Standard. Basic Public IPs are not supported on Standard LB | When using a Public Basic Load Balancer, the SKU of the public IP must be Basic. Standard Public IPs are not supported on Basic LB |
| Diagnostics | Azure Monitor multi-dimensional metrics | Not supported |
| HA Ports | Available for Internal Load Balancer | Not available |
| Secure by default | Closed to inbound flows unless allowed by a network security group. Internal traffic from the virtual network to the internal load balancer is allowed. | Open by default. Network security group optional. |
| Outbound Rules | Declarative outbound NAT configuration | Not available |
| TCP Reset on Idle | Available on any rule | Not available |
| Multiple front ends | Inbound and outbound | Inbound only |
| Management Operations | Most operations < 30 seconds | 60-90+ seconds typical |
| SLA | 99.99% | Not available |
| Global VNet Peering Support | Standard Internal Load Balancer is supported via Global VNet Peering | Not supported |
| NAT Gateway Support | Both Standard Internal Load Balancer and Standard Public Load Balancer are supported via Nat Gateway | Not supported |
| Private Link Support | Standard Internal Load Balancer is supported via Private Link | Not supported |
| Global tier | Standard Load Balancer supports the Global tier for Public Load Balancers enabling cross-region load balancing | Not supported |
For more information, see Load balancer limits. For Standard Load Balancer details, see overview, pricing, and SLA. For information on Gateway SKU - catered for third-party network virtual appliances (NVAs), see Gateway Load Balancer overview
Limitations
- A standalone virtual machine resource, availability set resource, or virtual machine scale set resource can reference one SKU, never both.
- Move operations:
- Resource group move operations (within same subscription) are supported for Standard Load Balancer and Standard Public IP.
- Subscription move operations are not supported for Standard Load Balancers.
Next steps
- See Create a public Standard Load Balancer to get started with using a Load Balancer.
- Learn about using Standard Load Balancer and Availability Zones.
- Learn about Health Probes.
- Learn about using Load Balancer for outbound connections.
- Learn about Standard Load Balancer with HA Ports load balancing rules.
- Learn more about Network Security Groups.
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