https://blog.margrop.net/en/tag/clb/ Recent content in CLB on Margrop Blog Hugo en-US Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:40:00 +0800 https://blog.margrop.net/en/post/aliyun-slb-alb-nlb-clb-explained/ Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:40:00 +0800 https://blog.margrop.net/en/post/aliyun-slb-alb-nlb-clb-explained/ <blockquote> <p><strong>Short version</strong></p> <p>On Alibaba Cloud, do not treat <code>SLB</code> as one single instance type anymore. The more accurate mental model is this: <strong>SLB is the Server Load Balancer product family, and the concrete choices are mainly ALB, NLB, and CLB.</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>ALB</strong> is the Application Load Balancer for Layer 7 traffic such as HTTP, HTTPS, QUIC, gRPC, and SSE. If you need routing by domain, path, header, cookie, method, or query string, start here.</li> <li><strong>NLB</strong> is the Network Load Balancer for Layer 4 traffic such as TCP, UDP, and TCPSSL. If you need massive connections, low latency, long-lived sessions, IoT, audio/video, or a message-service entry point, start here.</li> <li><strong>CLB</strong> is the Classic Load Balancer. It supports TCP, UDP, HTTP, and HTTPS, with solid Layer 4 capability and basic Layer 7 features. It is still useful for existing systems, but new designs should usually evaluate ALB or NLB first.</li> </ul> <p>A simple analogy: <strong>ALB is a receptionist who understands business rules, NLB is a high-speed toll gate, CLB is an older all-in-one service counter, and SLB is the name of the whole building.</strong></p> </blockquote>