---
name: loadbalancer-service-explore-load-balancers
title: Exploring IBM Cloud load balancers
description: IBM Cloud offers several load balancing solutions to choose from. The following table compares the load balancing solutions to help you choose the one that's right for you. To learn more about the individual offering, click its name in the table.
last-updated: 2026-04-28
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/loadbalancer-service?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Exploring IBM Cloud load balancers
{: #explore}

IBM Cloud offers several load balancing solutions to choose from. The following table compares the load balancing solutions to help you choose the one that's right for you. To learn more about the individual offering, click its name in the table.
{: shortdesc}


|Feature|[IBM Cloud® Load Balancer](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/loadbalancer-service?topic=loadbalancer-service-getting-started&format=markdown)|[Citrix NetScaler](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/citrix-netscaler-vpx?topic=citrix-netscaler-vpx-getting-started&format=markdown) VPX (Standard)|[Citrix NetScaler](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/citrix-netscaler-vpx?topic=citrix-netscaler-vpx-getting-started&format=markdown) VPX (Platinum)|
|-------|:------:|:------:|:------:|
|**Public VIP**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Private VIP**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Layer 4 load balancer**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Layer 7 load balancer**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Health Checks**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Horizontal Scaling**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|No|No|
|**SSL offload**|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Management**|IBM console|Self-manage (Vendor GUI)|Self-manage (Vendor GUI)|
|**High Availability**|Built-in|Optional|Optional|
|**Advance LB (TCP Optimization, Compress, Caching, WAF)**|No|Limited|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
|**Global LB**|No|No|![Checkmark icon](../../icons/checkmark-icon.svg)|
{: row-headers}
{: class="comparison-table"}
{: caption="A comparison of IBM's load balancer offerings" caption-side="top"}
{: summary="This table lists all of IBM's load balancer offerings, and provides links to their documentation."}