What Protocols Do Vultr Load Balancers Support?

Vultr Load Balancers support TCP, HTTP, and HTTPS protocols.

• TCP: Provides transport-level load balancing for any application that communicates over TCP, including databases, custom services, and non-HTTP workloads. This mode forwards raw TCP streams without inspecting application-layer traffic.
• HTTP: Enables Layer 7 (application layer) load balancing for web applications. The load balancer can use HTTP-specific features such as URL-based routing, host headers, and health checks that validate application responses.
• HTTPS: Extends HTTP load balancing with TLS/SSL encryption. The load balancer can terminate TLS connections (SSL offloading), reducing CPU load on backend instances, or it can pass encrypted traffic through if end-to-end encryption is required.

By choosing the appropriate protocol, you can balance traffic effectively for both general-purpose TCP services and secure web applications.