Load balancers · October 2026 Edition
Azure Load Balancer vs Azure Application Gateway
One of fourteen models named Azure Load Balancer first on the direct prompt; one named Azure Application Gateway. Azure Load Balancer was named by thirteen of the fourteen models and Azure Application Gateway by eight and Azure Load Balancer carries 29 labels and Azure Application Gateway 10, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Azure Load Balancer
accepted challengerNamed in one category this edition.
Named in two categories this edition.
First-choice share2%2%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate14%0%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#7#8A position in a field of 13; printed, not drawn.
Labels2910A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Azure Load Balancer reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.HAProxy was named alongside these two in ten of the fourteen direct answers. HAProxy vs Azure Load Balancer · HAProxy vs Azure Application Gateway · Progress Kemp LoadMaster vs Azure Load Balancer
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the load balancers page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
Azure Load BalancerFirst choices, of fourteen modelsAzure Application Gateway
Direct11
Paraphrase00
Comparative00
Budget-constrained002 against Azure Load Balancer
Scale-constrained00
Negative002 against Azure Load Balancer
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Azure Load Balancer and Azure Application Gateway stood in it.
| Model | DirectAL | ParaphraseAL | ComparativeAL | Budget-constrainedAL | Scale-constrainedAL | NegativeAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | AL | | ||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | AL | |||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | AL | |||
| Perplexity Sonar | | |||||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | AL | AL | ||||
| Mistral Small | AL | AL | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | AL | AL | AL | |||
| Llama 4 Maverick | ||||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | AL | ||||
| Kimi K2 | ||||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | ||||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | AL | | AL | AL | ||
| GPT-6 Luna | AL | | AL | |||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | AL | AL |
AL Azure Load Balancer Azure Application GatewayAL first choiceAL named as an alternativeAL argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Azure Load Balancer on the left and Azure Application Gateway on the right.
Azure Application GatewayAL first choiceAL named as an alternativeAL argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Azure Load Balancer on the left and Azure Application Gateway on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Azure Load Balancer and Azure Application Gateway stood in it.
Azure Load Balancer first, Azure Application Gateway not the choice
1 of 14 modelsAzure Application Gateway was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, NGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5, HAProxy
Azure Application Gateway first, Azure Load Balancer not the choice
1 of 14 modelsAzure Load Balancer was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Qwen 3.7 FlashAWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, NGINX alternatives: Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy
Neither was the first choice, one was named
7 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.GPT-5.4 miniApplication Load Balancer alternatives: Azure Load Balancer, Google Cloud's Application Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer
Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Perplexity SonarHAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Application Gateway
Grok 4.1 FastHAProxy, NGINX alternatives: AWS ALB, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
MiniMax M2.5Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX
GPT-6 LunaAWS Application Load Balancer alternatives: Azure Application Gateway, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Application Load Balancer, Google Cloud Network Load Balancer
Muse Glimmer 30BProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Neither was named
5 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Mistral SmallCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: HAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster, VMware Avi Load Balancer
DeepSeek V4 FlashProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Kimi K2HAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: F5 NGINX
GLM 4.7 FlashXNGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Azure Load Balancer leads by six points.
Azure Load Balancer6%#6 of 13
Azure Application Gateway0%#11 of 13Mid-marketThe figures above
Level: the same share of first choices.
Azure Load Balancer2%#7 of 13
Azure Application Gateway2%#8 of 13Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Azure Load Balancer0%#10 of 10
Azure Application Gateway0%#– of 10What the models said about Azure Load Balancer
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Cloud-native load balancers (AWS ELB, Azure LB, GCP LB) ... may lack deep packet inspection, advanced routing rules, or cross-cloud consistency” MiniMax M2.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Traefik is rated higher for value, with reviewers expressing greater satisfaction with its pricing compared to Azure Load Balancer.” Muse Glimmer 30B · budget prompt · soft negative
“excellent within their ecosystems but can lead to vendor lock-in” Mistral Small · negative prompt · soft negative
“Cloud-native load balancers (AWS ALB, Azure LB) are often the best fit” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“Azure Load Balancer for network-layer distribution, especially in Azure-native environments.” GPT-5.4 mini · direct prompt · alternative
“AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, or Google Cloud Load Balancing” MiniMax M2.5 · budget prompt · alternative
What the models said about Azure Application Gateway
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of four in this category shown.
“Use the Application Gateway on Azure or Network Load Balancer (NLB) on AWS if you have strict compliance requirements” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“If everything is already in Azure and you prefer a managed service, Azure Application Gateway is a natural fit.” MiniMax M2.5 · paraphrase prompt · alternative
“AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ALB/NLB) or Azure's Application Gateway run directly within your cloud architecture.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · alternative
Also compared
HAProxy vs Azure Load BalancerHAProxy vs Azure Application GatewayProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs Azure Load BalancerProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs Azure Application GatewayNGINX vs Azure Load BalancerNGINX vs Azure Application GatewayAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Azure Load BalancerAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs Azure Application GatewayCloudflare Load Balancing vs Azure Load BalancerCloudflare Load Balancing vs Azure Application GatewayTraefik vs Azure Load BalancerTraefik vs Azure Application GatewayAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full load balancers standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.