Load balancer that works at the application layer, routing traffic based on content like URLs, headers, and cookies. Like a smart receptionist who reads your request and directs you to the right department.
A Layer 7 load balancer routes /images requests to image servers, /api requests to API servers, and /videos to video servers based on the URL path.
All provide Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) traffic management such as host/path-based routing, header-based rules, TLS termination, health checks, and integration with autoscaling targets. Feature depth differs (e.g., WAF, global vs regional scope, and rule syntax), but they serve the same core purpose: content-aware routing at the application layer.