No. 4 of 26 ·Load Balancing Software

MetalLB

Linux · Self-hosted

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.3

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely1 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

MetalLB is ranked #4 of 26 in load balancing software on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

MetalLB plans and pricing

All plans

MetalLB Free No paid plans listed; open source project for Kubernetes load balancing metallb.io · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on load balancing software

Managed service: No
Layer 4 routing: Yes

Best MetalLB alternatives

See all 12

One bar VMware Workstation Pro Free tier No. 1Free6.5 One bar AWS Elastic Load Balancing Free tier No. 2Free6.4 One bar HAProxy Community Edition Free tier No. 3Free6.3 One bar F5 BIG-IP APM Paid plans No. 5—5.4 No signal OpenELB Paid plans No. 6—5.4 No signal Hetzner Cloud Volumes Paid plans No. 7—5.3

The record

Purpose: MetalLB provides a network load balancer for Kubernetes clusters that do not run on a cloud provider.
Address allocation: It assigns and unassigns service IPs from address pools configured by the operator.
Announcement modes: It announces service addresses using ARP, NDP, or BGP, depending on the selected mode.
Layer 2: In layer 2 mode, one cluster machine announces a service IP using ARP for IPv4 or NDP for IPv6.
BGP: BGP mode peers cluster machines with nearby routers and can distribute traffic across multiple nodes.
BGP backend: The recommended FRR-K8s mode supports BFD, IPv6, and merging additional FRR configuration.
Install options: MetalLB can be installed using Kubernetes manifests, Kustomize, or Helm; an Operator is also available on OperatorHub.
Configuration: MetalLB remains idle until configured with resources such as IPAddressPool in its deployment namespace.
Requirements: The project lists Kubernetes 1.13.0 or later, a compatible cluster network, and IPv4 addresses as requirements.
Cloud compatibility: MetalLB is generally incompatible with cloud providers; its compatibility page lists AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud as unsupported.
Runtime privileges: The speaker pod requires elevated permissions for its network functions.
Security changes: Release notes report read-only root filesystems and disabled privilege escalation for containers that lacked those settings, and a fix for CVE-2025-22874.
Maturity: MetalLB describes itself as a beta project and says its configuration format may change incompatibly as the project develops.
Community and support: The project provides a users mailing list and Slack channel, and ongoing development and maintenance are led by project maintainers.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Load Balancing Software in 2026#4 of 26

Is MetalLB yours?

Claim it for free: prove the domain, then correct facts, plans and screenshots. An editor reviews every change.

Claim it free Promote MetalLB

Sources

metallb.io/concepts/· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io/installation/· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io/configuration/· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io/installation/clouds/· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io/release-notes/· checked 4 Oct 2026
metallb.io/concepts/maturity/· checked 4 Oct 2026