| OSI Layer |
Layer 4 (Transport) |
Layer 7 (Application) |
Layer 7 (Application) |
DNS-based (Layer 7 via DNS) |
| Scope |
Regional or Global |
Regional |
Global |
Global |
| Traffic Type |
TCP/UDP (non-HTTP/S) |
HTTP/HTTPS |
HTTP/HTTPS |
Any (via DNS redirection) |
| Protocol Awareness |
No content inspection |
URL path, host header, SSL termination |
URL path, host header, SSL termination, caching |
DNS-based routing only |
| Health Probes |
TCP/HTTP/HTTPS |
HTTP/HTTPS |
HTTP/HTTPS |
DNS endpoint monitoring |
| Session Affinity |
Source IP affinity |
Cookie-based |
Supported |
Not supported |
| Web Application Firewall |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
| SSL Termination |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
| Caching / CDN |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
| Public/Private Support |
✅ Both |
✅ Both |
✅ Public only |
✅ Public only |
| Use Case |
Internal or external TCP/UDP balancing |
Secure web apps with custom routing |
Global web apps with low latency |
Geo-routing and DNS-based failover |
| Best For |
VM-level traffic, AKS, backend services |
Web apps needing WAF, SSL offload |
APIs, static content, multi-region apps |
Multi-region apps needing DNS balancing |
| Pricing |
Basic (free), Standard (paid) |
Standard_v2 / WAF_v2 |
Standard / Premium |
Based on DNS queries and monitoring |
Techy Chalkboard in bits and pieces 